


Taking A Village

by Zaffie



Series: Nova [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Algae Farms!, And I Just Wanted To Write Space Adventures, And Studied More About Algae Than I Really Needed To, Babies are cute, Between S4 And S5 Stuff, But Everything Else Is Canon, Except For Murphy/Emori They're Together Forever, F/M, Gen, Here goes, I Got Way Too Invested In This?, I Love Raven The Most Gotta Be Honest, It Just Felt Like Such A Chore, Just Some Casual Space Survival, No Very Serious Relationships, Oh Right Raven Had A Kid, Okay I Can Do This, Over Six Years Or So, Post-Season-4, Recycled Water!, Sigh I Sucked At Tagging Today, So There's Some AU Elements, Some Casual Current Bellamy/Echo Stuff, Some Casual Former Bellamy/Raven Stuff, Sorry guys, Space Is The Best, Space Kids Just Chilling, The Ark!, The Constant Looming Threat Of Imminent Death!, The Inspiration Wasn't There, The Ring!, They Got Promise Rings Or Something IDK, Yep My Bad, just had to throw that in there, space is cool
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-02-05 22:39:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 44,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12803907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaffie/pseuds/Zaffie
Summary: Once they get it all sorted, the technical aspect of living on the Ring turns out to be the easy part. It's the rest which is hard. Everyone's got their personal demons to face - except when you're seven people trapped together for five-plus years, "personal" is easier said than done.A post-S4 fic featuring a lot of complex inter-personal relationships and hopefully some dramatics. Also, I added a baby, for unfathomable reasons. I don't know why I keep adding babies to everything, my bad. So this is technically a kid-fic, except it really isn't a kid-fic at all. This is 90% space-drama with 10% of AU-with-baby-drama.





	1. The Raven Bit (2150) Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ehhhhh I mean I was gonna apologise for my tagging and even my summarising just being unconscionably bad today (seriously, no idea what's up, but it's terrible) but if you're reading it then you've clicked, and you're not judging me on my horrendous blurb-writing and truly awful tagging. You are the coolest of kids.
> 
> Technically this is a part of my "Unnecessary Children" series but I put a little more effort into it than usual and it ended up as a fairly well-developed fic. 
> 
> Have fun with this one :) I did!

_April_

     There’s so much to do in the first few days. The algae farm and the oxygen and the water reclaimers and the constant, ever-present fear that something will break and they’ll all die. It would just take one broken part. One piece of machinery too old to function. One human error.

     Raven finds herself in high demand. She’s called from one part of the Ring to another; look at this, tinker with that. She barely sleeps and her leg is stiff and the muscles in her hip and thigh burn from dragging the useless limb around. The overuse works its way up her body and so when she does finally sleep, she’s woken by the muscles of her side and abdomen cramping and spasming.

     They’re all kind of in shit condition at the start anyway. Recovering from radiation burns or sickness and weak with thirst as Raven and Monty work frantically to make sure the water reclaimer is working properly. There’s water leftover in the old algae farm and they take some of it, run it through cycle after cycle to clean it.

     Raven wakes in the corridor with Murphy’s hand on her shoulder. “What?” she asks, yanking away from him, scrambling to get to her feet. He offers his arms to help her and she ignores him. “I’m fine.”

     “Echo’s sick.”

     “We’re all sick.”

     “Yeah,” Murphy says. “She’s _really_ sick.” He’s still got that smirk on his face, cold reptile eyes, but Raven can tell he’s serious.

     “Where’s Bellamy?”

     “Dunno,” he shrugs. “I was hoping you’d know.”

     Raven shakes her head and follows Murphy down the corridor. Echo is in the former Council chamber; the ones where they’d held their meetings, where they’d decided to send a bunch of kids to Earth. Fucking ironic, Raven thinks, that they’re back up here in this place.

     Echo’s face is pale and her lips are crusted and her eyes are dull. Her nose runs and she’s already vomited twice.

     Emori is standing in the doorway. She turns to Raven and says, “Is it the radiation?”

     “I don’t know,” Raven snaps. The medical station is up here. They should get Echo there, but - “We can’t afford to all get sick,” she says. “Not if it’s contagious. Maybe she just picked up some bug before we left and-” Raven trails off. They’ve all been in incredibly close proximity; working together, living together, eating and drinking from the same sources. If it is contagious, chances are they’re all sick already.

     Murphy sighs. “I’ll go find Bellamy,” he offers.

     There’d been a limited number of illnesses on the Ark. Food poisoning, sure, and the rest was mostly just colds, or the flu. The flu could kill; Raven had seen it. After a while they’d all caught the same thing enough times to build up a pretty good resistance. But that was to Ark viruses. This could be anything.

     “Come on,” she says to Emori. “Help me get her to Med. She’s got to drink and rest.”

     Emori glances down, at Raven’s bad leg, then back up. “Are you sure?”

     “Come on,” Raven scoffs, “you think this slows me down? Please.”

     Emori just shrugs, moves into the room and gets a grip under Echo’s arm, half-lifting the woman to her feet as she moans. Raven gets under Echo’s other arm and together they help her walk.

     Murphy, Harper and Bellamy meet them at Med, and Murphy takes over from Raven. Harper rushes ahead and lowers the bed and they help Echo tumble onto it.

     Raven stands back and folds her arms over her chest. She rests her weight on her good leg and glances up at Bellamy. “We’re all going to get sick,” she says.

     “Not if it’s radiation sickness.”

     “Then she’ll die.”

     He presses his lips together and nods. “Or she won’t.”

     Raven rolls her eyes, because they don’t have time to be non-committal. Or hopeful. It’s worst-case scenarios, all the time. “Bellamy, she’s going to have to take care of herself in there. We have to stay away as much as we can. You and Monty especially.”

     “It’s a bit late for that,” he observes.

     “Just Monty, then. But we can’t all get sick _at the same time_ ,” Raven stresses. “Just a few days would be enough to kill us all. Someone has to be monitoring the farm and the water reclaimer and the oxygenator. If anything breaks down we have to fix it straight away. You know that, right? We don’t have the luxury of getting sick.”

     Bellamy’s nodding, but he’s still not looking at her. “You’re right.” There’s a tension to his jaw and his eyes are staring straight through Echo. Raven wonders what he’s thinking about. What he’s remembering.

     “Bellamy,” she says.

     He seems to come back, turns to look down at her. “Okay. I’ll keep Monty away from here. You try and stay clear too. We’ll see how it goes.”

     Raven nods. “Yeah. We’ll see.”

    

     Echo’s over the puking by the second day, but she’s dehydrated and exhausted and her skin is white and bloodless. They can’t waste water soaking cloths to bring down Echo’s fever. It’s not exactly warm anywhere on the Ring, but they cut down the heat to Med and it seems to help.

     Harper’s mostly the one who’s doing the caring, but Emori is the next one to get sick. And Raven has about a day to think that maybe it’s just some Grounder thing before she gets sick too.

     She’s feverishly delirious for a few days but she doesn’t puke, which is a relief. That water’s gotta stay inside her body. It’s a burning in her eyes and a blocked nose and angry pounding in her head. A sore throat which turns into a cough that reverberates through her entire body. She loses her voice.

     And then she wakes up and she’s feeling better. More alert.

     Monty is standing beside her. “Hey,” he says, smiling. “How are you doing?”

     “Okay,” Raven rasps. Her voice is cracking and hoarse and barely there. She tries to clear her throat. When she swallows it feels like sandpaper.

     “Drink some,” Monty says. He helps her sit up, puts a tin mug to her lips with his clumsy, bandaged hands. Raven swallows and swallows again, and the water is cool but her throat is on fire. She touches the outside of her neck and winces.

     “How long?” she manages to ask.

     “You’ve been sick almost six days,” Monty says. “Harper and Murphy came down with it right after you did, but Echo’s back on her feet, and Emori’s getting there. Bellamy’s fine. Me, too.” He smiles at her.

     Raven goes to smile back but her stomach flips and rolls. “I think I’m gonna puke,” she drags out, through dry lips and a swollen tongue, and Monty’s face goes from pleasant to concerned.

     “Hang on,” he says, reaches for a kidney-shaped metal dish and sticks it in Raven’s lap.

     Staring at it isn’t comforting, but she waits for nausea to swell up and nothing happens. Just that twitching in her belly. Like spasms. Like ripples. Like something moving.

     Realisation comes fast and Raven drops the kidney dish and presses the heels of her hands into her eyes and says, “ _Fuck_.”

     “Raven?” There’s a tentative hand on her shoulder. When she doesn’t shrug it off, Monty moves his hand between her shoulder blades and rubs gently.

     “I’m okay,” Raven says. “I’m not going to be sick.” She’s not, now that she understands. Instead she lies back down slowly, drapes her arm across her face and says, “I just need to sleep.”

     “Yeah,” Monty says. “I’ll be around. Don’t go anywhere.”

     Raven twists her head to the side and watches him walk across Med to the second bed, where Harper is. Emori’s lying on a table with a pillow under her head and her eyes closed.

    

     Back on the ground, it had taken Raven a long time to figure out what she was feeling. There’d been so much other stuff to worry about, and so many reasons for her to be sick, and exhausted, swollen and sore.

     She’d been too skinny on the Ark - always undernourished, with her mother trading her rations away. Raven had never had a period. Just queued up with the rest of them and gotten her implant when she turned fourteen. Ten years, it was supposed to last. Ten years _minimum_. And here she is, and she’s nineteen years old and that implant was _shit._

     She hadn’t been thinking about sex when she got it. Not really. Even afterwards, when her relationship with Finn evolved and changed, the implant hadn’t been on her mind. It was something that had happened when she was practically a child and Raven had never given it a second thought. She hadn’t even imagined - she’d never learnt to be careful. She wasn’t supposed to _need_ to be careful. The implant wasn’t infallible, but it was so rare for it to stop working. _So_ rare.

     Abby had figured it out. She’d been the only one, as far as Raven knows. Doctor mode had kicked in and Abby had tried to tell her. Said things like _take care of yourself Raven_ and _don’t overdo it_ and _you’ll only make your conditions worse._

Conditions. Plural. Pregnancy and a bum leg. What a raw deal. But Raven had ignored Abby and ignored the reality of her situation. She’d pushed Wick away, just in case he figured it out. In case he noticed her body changing. (And she doesn’t even know where he is - how sick is that? Doesn’t know if he’s _alive._ There’s always too much other stuff to be thinking about.)

     Raven had just never figured she’d have to worry about it surviving. She’d been shot and stitched back up again. She’d taken the stupid chip and had her friends tie her down and shock it out of her. She’d submerged herself in a tank of ice water and come out minutes later to defibrillate her heart back into rhythm. After that, she’d figured there was no need to worry. No pregnancy could have endured all that. She’d just accepted that it was over and been grateful that she wouldn’t have to tell anybody now.

     So. Raven supposes this’ll teach her to make assumptions.

     She drops her hand to her middle and runs it over the shallow bump beneath her shirt. There’s hardly enough room in there, she thinks. But there is definitely a curve where there’d been a flat line before, and the skin is taut and hard.

     Raven lets out a heavy breath. Now she has even more to worry about.

 

     It’s another week before everybody has caught and recovered from Echo’s stupid flu. They sleep in shifts, half of them in the Med section, the sick ones on the beds and the carers on the floor. Raven, Murphy and Bellamy take turns by the farm. They pull one of the massive armchairs out of the Chancellor’s old office and drag it down to the algae. The seat is big enough that Raven can curl with her knees tucked to her chest and sleep in the chair.

     Her back hurts. Her hip hurts, and her leg hurts, and she keeps getting these headaches that she refuses to think are any kind of remnant from the chip, or the tumour. They’re just headaches. Everyone has headaches sometimes. She’s just tired. Burnt out. Her neck is stiff from sleeping in a fucking chair.

     This would be the time to tell everyone. Realistically, Raven’s not going to be able to hide it much longer. But she’s still kind of thinking that it’ll all end up being too much and she’ll wake up one morning with blood between her legs and that will be the end of it.

     Besides, now that no one’s sick, there’s more important stuff to do. They’ve got to work out a place for everyone to sleep, and eat, and separate toilets for peeing, because, like Monty says, they can’t waste a drop.

     The Ark always had that going on. Recycled urine and shower water, and different toilets for anything _less_ hygienic. Shit, specifically. And it’s kind of scary, how quickly Raven finds herself falling back into old routines. It’s the Ring, sure, but it’s still the Ark. It’s still familiar.

     Emori and Echo struggle a little. They have to have everything explained to them, and it’s hard, to go from a world where they’re the experts to a world where nothing makes sense. Where they have to ask someone else’s permission before they do anything, in case they fuck up royally and kill everyone.

     Raven watches them. It’s harder for Echo, she thinks. Emori has Murphy, and that’s cool. They’re both a little creepy.

     She talks to Bellamy about it.

     “I don’t know what you want me to do,” he says. “We’ve only been up here a couple of weeks, Raven. Give it time.”

     “I know,” she says. “But maybe you could talk to Echo.”

     He laughs at her. “About what?”

     “I don’t know.” Raven rolls her eyes. “I’m not good at this stuff. This is all you and Cl-” and she chokes on Clarke’s name because she hasn’t said it since Praimfaya.

     Bellamy’s face softens. He moves a little - just a sort of twitch - like he’s going to put his arm around her, or something, but he doesn’t. Instead, he says, “I’ll talk to Echo.”

     “Yeah?” Raven says. “Because, you know, we’re all gonna be spending a lot of time together, and I think if things run smoothly that will make it a hell of a lot easier.”

     “Right,” Bellamy agrees. He smiles at her before he walks away.

     She should have told him then, Raven thinks. It was an opportunity. She should have taken it.

     Next time.

 

     The planet below is red and seething. When she looks at it, Raven has trouble imagining anyone could have survived. Even the people in the bunker. She tries to picture what the world looks like now. Empty, barren, dusty. What will it look like in five years, when they go down?

     She hasn’t properly thought about _five years_. The whole time they were planning to get up to the Ring, things were desperate. There wasn’t any time for thought - just survival. These first weeks here, they’ve been just as full-on. Preparing food, water, oxygen. Sleeping and working and eating and that’s it. But it’s starting to slow down and Raven is suddenly realising that they’re stuck here for five years. Seven of them. _For five years_. Even if they don’t murder each other (and she looks at Echo and Murphy and thinks that’s a big _if_ ) it’s entirely possible the Ring won’t support them for that long.  

     Anything could happen in five years. Raven has to tell them now.

     She turns her back to the window and sinks down until she’s sitting on the ground, bad leg stretched out in front of her. She lets her head drop back until her ponytail hits the wall.

     Monty and Harper round a corner into the corridor, holding hands, and for a split second Raven thinks that she sees Jasper behind them. Or she expects him to be there, following Monty.

     When was the last time she’d spoken to him? She doesn’t remember.

     “Hey,” Harper says. She unlaces her fingers from Monty’s and comes to sit beside Raven. “How are you feeling?”

     “Fine,” Raven says. “Way better.” She’d been slow to recover from the flu - slower than the rest of them.

     Monty settles down cross-legged in front of them. “I think Bellamy wanted you. He’s in the - what did we say we were gonna call it?”

     “Monitor room,” Harper says. She grins. “Because of all the monitors.”

     “Because of the monitoring,” Monty corrects. He looks up at Raven and gives her a half-smile. “You know, where they used to watch our life signs?”

     “Yeah,” Raven says. “Yeah, I know.” She puts her hands beneath her and starts preparing to lever herself up.

     Harper says, “Wait,” and Raven sinks back down.

     “What?”

     “Are you sure you’re okay? You’ve been kind of-”

     “Tense,” Monty completes.

     “I’m fine. I’m not sleeping well.”

     “Yeah,” he agrees, “I don’t think any of us are. It’s going to take some time to get used to.”

     Time. Raven snorts. They’ve got plenty of time. “I’m just tired,” she says. Hesitates. “What about you guys?”

     Harper glances at Monty, who looks at Raven and says, “We’re fine.”

     “Good,” Raven says. “We’re all fine. I’m going to see Bellamy.” She heaves herself up, ignores Monty when he offers to help her, and sets off down the corridor at a steady, rolling pace.

     Bellamy smiles when he sees her come in. A real one, that crinkles his eyes and makes Raven smile back without meaning to.

     “What are you so happy about?”

     “Nothing,” he says. “I’m just thinking. There’s a ton of stuff here. You don’t think there’s any way we could rig something up to send signals to the bunker? Or - receive them from Earth? Not right now, but later. When it’s safe for them to come out.”

     A lot of the stuff in here is junk and they’re running on minimal power and the bunker is _way_ underground and they’re in space, so Raven really doesn’t think she can rig anything up. But Bellamy is smiling and she’s got his back.

     “Maybe,” she says. “Given enough time. I mean, it’d be good to have some kind of confirmation that the ground is safe in five years, right? If we can talk to anyone who’s still down there…”

     “Exactly,” Bellamy says. “But we don’t have to start working on it yet.”

     “It’s a good idea,” Raven says. She runs her eyes over the screens, remembering them displaying the faces of the kids who’d been on the ground. Finn had been one of them. Clarke had been another. And Jasper. Miller. Octavia. She imagines their faces. They don’t come to her mind as easily now.

     “I miss them,” Bellamy says, like he’s reading her mind. Or maybe he looks at the screens and sees the same thing.

     “I wish we knew who’d stayed in the bunker,” Raven says, quietly. “I don’t - I don’t even know who made it. You know? But all of the people I really cared about are up here or… gone.”

     “I know Octavia’s safe,” Bellamy says. “And I know she’ll stay safe.”

     “What if the bunker didn’t work? What if we’re the last ones?” Raven asks suddenly. “Maybe in five years we’ll go down and there’ll be nobody left but us. Then what?”

     “Cross that bridge when we come to it, Raven. Besides, they made it. I know they did.”

     She shakes her head. “You can’t know that.”

     “It’s called having faith.”

     “Bellamy-”

     “Look, if we’re going to be stuck up here for five years without knowing what’s happened, I want to believe the best-case scenario. Okay? Clarke’s already dead. Don’t make me grieve for my sister as well.”

     She has to tell him. There’s not going to be any better time. Bite the fucking bullet, Raven tells herself. She’s tough. She can handle whatever he says.

     “I’m-” but she can’t just throw it out like that, can she? That seems wrong. There has to be a better way.

     Bellamy has turned towards her. “You’re what?”

     “Pregnant,” Raven says. Obviously she can’t think of a better way.

     Bellamy just stares. His mouth opens, closes, and opens again and he says, “Are you joking?”

     “No,” Raven says. “I’m so serious right now.”

     “You’re-”

     “Yep,” she interrupts, before she can hear him say the word. Bad enough saying it herself. “For a few months now.”

     “When?”

     “Um,” she says awkwardly, and then she moves her hand between the two of them like it can encompass everything she doesn’t want to say.

     Bellamy says, “ _Oh_.”

     “I think,” she adds. “I don’t know exactly when. So you or - or Finn…”

     “You’ve got an implant?” He taps his upper arm.

     “Yep,” Raven says. “Apparently they’re not perfect.” She shrugs, playing it off. “Who knew?”

     “And you’re _sure_?”

     “Mostly.” She drops her hand to her belly, feels the movement beneath her palm. “I don’t know, what do you think?” Raven reaches out for Bellamy’s hand and drags it until it covers her own, fingers splayed across the little bump.

     “I don’t-” he freezes, going still, and then his eyes open wide. “Was that-?”

     “Yep.”

     “Holy fuck.”

     “Yep.”

 

_May_

     Raven doesn’t want to tell everyone else. Not straight away. It’s not that she doesn’t want them to _know_ \- she’s just not keen on the idea of standing up and giving an announcement. That’s stupid. Besides, they’ll figure it out sooner or later. She’s been skinny and undernourished (and food rationing isn’t helping) but sooner or later it’s going to start to show.

     The days all blur into each other. She isn’t keeping track - it’s kind of impossible anyway, when she’s never sure how long she’s been awake, or how long she’s been asleep. They all pick rooms for themselves - rooms that used to belong to the old members of the Council. Cushions get pulled out of couches and spread across the ground and everyone makes their own space.

     She’d been so scared when she left here last time. And excited, too. Raven can still remember the feeling of her heart pounding, and the stupid, shitty little pod rattling around her. The stale taste of the oxygen in her helmet. Her first glimpse of the Ark from outside - that had been crazy. Her home, and her mother’s home, and her grandmother’s home. Generations going back a hundred years, and this was the first time she’d really truly seen it.

     And now she’s back.

 

     Emori’s always eager to learn about the Ring. She follows Raven around asking questions. “What do those mean?”

     Raven looks where the Grounder girl is pointing. “They’re flags. From countries on Earth.”

     “What do they mean?”

     “They’re all different,” Raven says. She points to the ones which are familiar. “That one’s the USA, which is most of the Ring, and Alpha Station. That one’s Russia.” She grins. “When I went to Earth, it was in a Russian pod. And that one’s Brazil, which is Mecha Station. Where I’m from.”

     “You’re from Brazil?”

     Raven says, “No,” and then pauses. “I mean, probably. Maybe. But I was from Mecha Station.”

     “Where’s that?”

     “It’s on the ground now.”

     Emori sticks her hands into her pockets and smiles up at the flags. “Which one was John from?”

     “Uh. I don’t actually know. You’ll have to ask him.”

     “He liked it up here,” Emori says, like she’s confiding something. “Until his father died.”

     Raven shrugs, because they’ve all had shit lives, but Murphy’s the only one who shot her. “Yeah,” she says. “I bet that sucked.”

     “You don’t like him,” Emori notes.

     “He’s gotten a lot better,” Raven says. “Who knows? Maybe in five years we’ll be best friends.” The thought shoots through her once again. _Five years._ Her hand creeps up to curve around her belly and she forces herself to drop it back down to her side. The kid would be four by the time they got to go home. Four-and-a-half. Raven tries to picture the little kids who’d lived on the Ark. They can talk and stuff, right?

     She can’t imagine how this is going to work. At least Bellamy knows what he’s doing.

 

     Raven says, “Hey. It’s your turn to sleep.”

     Echo’s been using the paddles on the algae pools, but she glances up at Raven’s voice. “Already?”

     “Uh huh.” Raven pulls a hand through her hair and shrugs her jacket more closely around her body. “I’ll take over.”

     “Have fun.”

     It’s definitely the most boring job, Raven thinks, but if anything happens they’re all dead. So it’s important. Just… lame.

     “Thanks,” she says, waving a hand at Echo.

     The other woman doesn’t leave. Instead she hands the paddle to Raven and hesitates. “Do you know who the father is?”

     Raven’s head jerks up sharply. “What?”

     Echo gestures at her own midsection, then at Raven. “Of your child. It must have happened before Praimfaya.”

     “Yeah,” Raven says. “A few months before. And no, I’m not totally sure, but I have some idea who.” She isn’t sure if Bellamy wants to share that, though.

     “The radiation didn’t damage it?”

     Actually, Raven has no idea. “It’s pretty far along,” she says. “I guess we’ll find out when it’s born.”

     Echo nods. “Will it survive? In space?”

     “Jeez, Echo, I don’t know.” Raven rolls her eyes. “We’ll find that out, too.”

     The Grounder looks like she wants to say something else, but she doesn’t. Just turns and leaves. When she’s gone Raven heaves out a sigh and touches a hand to the hard, round skin of her belly. Beneath her fingers something shifts.

    

     It takes a few more weeks for Raven to realise that no one else is going to bring it up. Too afraid of getting it wrong, probably, and accusing her of getting fat. Not that it would be possible on the rations they’re getting.

     She takes the initiative during one of the few times they’re all together, for a meal.

     “In case you guys hadn’t already noticed, there’s going to be a baby.” Raven pauses to chew and swallow. “Apparently.”

     Bellamy glances at her, startled into a laugh. “Apparently?”

     “I mean, assuming nothing happens,” Raven says. “Hey, I’m just being cautious.”

     “Congratulations,” Harper says shyly.

     “Thanks.”

     “Will it be okay?” Monty wants to know. “After… Praimfaya, and the trip up here, and everything?”

     Raven scoops more dried food into her mouth, shakes her head and says, “I don’t know. We’ll find out.”

     “It’ll be fine,” Bellamy says.

     “Unless it has two heads,” Monty says. He stops when everyone stares at him. “What? There was that deer - we saw it on like our first day down! Don’t you remember?”

     “I don’t think I was there,” Harper says.

     “I wasn’t,” Raven says.

     Monty frowns. “It was me and Jasper,” he says, slowly, “and Finn, and… Octavia and Clarke.”

     There’s a brief, pain-filled silence.

     Emori breaks it. “What are you naming the baby?”

     “Um.” Raven hasn’t thought that far ahead. She looks at Bellamy. He shrugs.

     “It might be _Frikdreina_ ,” Emori says. She waves her disfigured hand. “Like me. You could call it Emori.”

     “That seems like it would get confusing, honestly,” Raven says.

     “Or Otan,” Emori says, not discouraged. “My brother was called Otan.”

     Echo says, “If it is _Frikdreina_ it should not be allowed to survive.”

     Emori rounds on her. “Why? Because it’s tradition? Because it’s _ugly?_ There is no tradition up here. We make our own rules.”

     “Okay,” Raven interjects. “Let’s chat about this some other time.” She swallows a final mouthful and stands up from the table. “I’m going to my room.”

     She hears them as she leaves, arguing over which one of them upset her. There’s a scrape of chair legs against the floor and Raven figures it will be Bellamy who comes after her. She walks faster.

     He catches up with her in the corridor. “Raven, wait!”

     “What?” she asks, spinning around.

     “They didn’t mean anything.”

     Raven shrugs. “I’m not bothered.”

     “Are you sure?”

     “I’m fine,” she says, and then she blows out a breath. “I’m not cut out to be a mom,” she admits. “I’m going to suck at this, Bellamy.”

     “You won’t.”

     Raven looks up, meeting his eyes. “Just so you know,” she says, “I really regret fucking you. It was a huge mistake.”

     “It wasn’t _that_ bad, was it?”

     Raven chokes out a laugh. “Not _that_ bad. But the side effects are shit.”

     “It’s going to be okay,” Bellamy says. “We’re all going to be okay.”

     “You’re really good at saying that like you mean it.”

     Bellamy reaches out for her and pulls her closer to him, his arms dropping over her shoulders, Raven’s face tucked into his chest. “I do mean it,” he says. “Always.”

 

     “I like Beckett,” Bellamy says. “For a boy.”

     Raven’s half-under the console in the monitoring room, but she wriggles until she can see him and laughs. Derisively.

     “What?” he asks.

     “You named Octavia, didn’t you?”

     “Yeah? So?”

     Raven snorts. “ _Octavia_.”

     “Oh, like you can talk, bird-girl.”

     “I didn’t name myself,” she says. “It was like the only thing my mom ever actually did for me.”

     Bellamy’s gone quiet, and she wonders what he’s thinking about. She doesn’t know much about Bellamy and Octavia’s mother - except that the woman broke the rules, and paid the price. It sucks, Raven thinks, but there you are.

     “Well, what names do you like?” he asks suddenly.

     “I don’t know,” Raven says absently, focusing back on her work. “Pliers.”

     “That’s not a name.”

     “Something space-themed, then. Asteroid. Or Comet. Or Rocket.”

     “Those are all terrible names.”

     “I’m busy,” Raven says. “Go bug someone else about your baby.”

     Bellamy laughs at her before he leaves. She’s not sure if he’s told the rest of them that it might be his - she’s not even sure if he thinks it is. If he has doubts, though, he’s been nice enough not to mention them to Raven.

     She’s lost track of time since they came up here, and even before that, she was never exactly sure how far along she was. Still, it’s got to be getting closer. She’s actually swollen in the middle now, and she can feel the baby kicking properly. Not just little flutters but real, heavy movements. It’s hard to walk - harder than usual. So it has to be soon. Raven doesn’t think she can stand this for much longer.

 

_June_

     When the labour actually does start, all Raven can think is that she’s not ready. It’s way too soon. They’ve only been up here a couple of months, and they’ve just barely got the first harvest of algae that wasn’t crappy. They’re coming to the end of the rations, and the vitamin supplies in Med are low, and they’re all going to get fucking scurvy or something unless the algae starts growing properly, like, yesterday.

     Monty says he’s working on it. Raven hopes.

     It doesn’t happen fast, like she’d assumed. It’s just hours and hours of slow waves of pain rolling through her body and she refuses to lie down and act like an invalid. It’s just pain. Pain doesn’t scare her anymore. She can’t remember the last time she had a pain-free day.

     Before she went to the ground, probably. And before she learnt that Finn had been sent to the ground, because that was a whole other type of pain.

     She’d always just kind of assumed that she and Finn would have kids together. He’d been a crutch for Raven, the whole time she was growing up. He’d kept her fed, kept her company. He’d always been there. For everything.

     Raven thinks she didn’t grow up until he was gone. Not properly. But after he died (and, also, after he cheated on her like an arsehole) she felt herself change. Not a bad change, just… different. A different version of herself.

     Bellamy holds her hand. “Breathe.”

     “Uh, yeah. I know how to do that,” Raven says. She rolls her eyes.

     “I watched Octavia being born,” he tells her. “It was horrible. It really put me off the whole _kids_ thing.”

     “But it didn’t stop you sleeping around.”

     Bellamy says, “Hey! You asked me, remember?”

     “I do. I also remember you screwing just a ton of rebellious teenagers when we were on the ground.” Raven smirks at the look on his face, then grimaces as pain snakes around her belly. “Just a _ton_ ,” she repeats.

     “Okay. Shut up.”

     “Clarke said that every time she went into your tent she found a different naked girl. Or, multiple naked girls.”

     “And you just believed her?”

     “Definitely.”

     Bellamy smiles. “Okay. I was a dumb kid.”

     “It was like six months ago. You’re still a dumb kid.”

     “Nine months,” Bellamy says quietly. “We’ve been up here for three.”

     Raven does the math. “Only fifty-seven more to go,” she says brightly.

     “Yeah.”

     Another wave of pain ripples through Raven’s back and she presses her lips together, closes her eyes and waits for it to pass. When she opens them, Bellamy’s got his hands over his face and she thinks he might be crying.

     “Clarke cared about you,” she says. “You know that, right?”

     “I know.” His voice is muffled.

     “And you’re probably right about Octavia being fine,” Raven adds. “She’s too damn stubborn not to be fine.”

     “That’s true.”

     “Bellamy,” Raven says. She waits for him to look at her. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad that, if there had to be a baby, it was probably yours. Okay?”

     “Thank you.”

    

     When Bellamy goes to take his shift in the algae farm, Echo comes to sit with Raven.

     “It hurts,” the Grounder says.

     “Yeah, no shit.”

     Quite suddenly, Echo says, “I watched my mother die in childbirth.”

     Raven’s been pacing the room but she stops and turns around to stare at Echo. “Huh?”

     “I was nine. She was too old and weak to have another baby, and everybody said so. But still, she persisted. I helped her birth my sister. I cut the cord and held her.” Echo’s face is cold and hard. “My mother bled to death.”

     “That’s a story I really wanted to hear right now.”

     “I cared for my sister alone,” Echo says. “I took milk from the cows and fed her with it. I held her when she cried.”

     “You’re good with babies, then?”

     “When my sister was four years old she died during a _Trikru_ raid of my village.” Echo lifts her chin. “That was when I started training. I vowed that I would never again watch a member of my clan die.”

     “I’m… sorry,” Raven says. She’s trying to focus on what is definitely the most meaningful conversation she’s ever had with Echo, but her muscles are squeezing and the pain is getting worse.

     Echo nods, short and abrupt, like she’s said what she wanted to say. She sits on the back of one of the chairs in the room, her feet on the seat, and watches Raven pace.

 

     It’s been hours before Bellamy comes back, and Raven is deep in the pain by then. Sunk into her own world, panting and teeth clenched and fists curled tight around the edge of the chair. She’s still not lying down - not quite sitting either - she’s not ready yet, but her legs are getting weak and the spasms that run through the muscles of her abdomen are getting stronger.

     “Contractions,” Bellamy says, when she mentions them. “It’s not long now.”

     “Good,” Raven grits out.

     Bellamy produces a tablet from the monitoring station; one of the few which was left up here. “It’s the thirtieth,” he says to Raven, “in case you were wondering.”

     “What?”

     “Today,” Bellamy says. He shakes the tablet a little, smiles down at the screen. “I got it working again. The date, it’s the thirtieth of June. Twenty-one-fifty. Their birthday.”

     Raven says, “Oh,” which is about all she can manage without crying out. She tries to bite her lip and hold the pain inside her body but it’s so hard to stay quiet. She closes her eyes and turns away from Bellamy and goes somewhere else. Deep within herself, where it’s just pain and pressure and the knowledge that yes, this is very real now. Now and forever.

 

     Echo and Harper stay with her, and Bellamy does too. Raven can hear his voice from time to time. She can’t always understand the words, but that doesn’t matter. Harper grips onto Raven’s hand and tells her that she’s got this.

     And she knows she can do it, because she’s done so damn much by herself. She got to Earth. She’s survived this far. _Raven_ can do it, but it’s the baby she suddenly finds herself worrying about. She’s been expecting it to die since she first realised that she was pregnant, shocked that the bullet and the surgery didn’t kill it. Now that it’s finally coming, Raven’s starting to worry in a whole different way. Once it’s real, the death will hurt. It won’t be something she’ll be able to shake off. She won’t be able to brush away concerns and pretend to be fine.

     It just has to be okay, that’s all. A fighter, like Raven.

     She can see Monty’s face at the half-open door, like he wants to come in but doesn’t know if he should. Murphy and Emori aren’t there - keeping themselves separate, Raven thinks, like they do. Not sure if they belong. She’s a little surprised that Echo’s still here.

     Her nails bite into her palms and leave deep red half-moon marks. Raven’s back curls and her body tenses and a shudder runs through her. She bites down on her lip but can’t hold back the choked-off cry. Harper’s hand strokes through the sweaty hair on Raven’s forehead, pushing away the strands that are escaping from her ponytail. It makes Raven think of Abby, suddenly, and she kind of wishes Abby was here.

     She’d hated Clarke, when she first properly met her on the ground. Sure, she’d seen the Ark’s princess before - more than a few times, over her life - but they'd never really spoken. Not ever more than a few words. And it’d been such a shock for Raven when Abby had treated her like an equal, not just a stupid kid. When Abby had acted like she cared what happened to Raven. She’d let Raven talk about Finn and she’d listened and she’d sympathised.

     No one had ever done that for Raven before. Right before she’d climbed into that pod and gone spinning down to Earth, Abby had hugged her. For a few seconds, she’d felt safe. Incredibly, indescribably safe. The way that Finn made her feel, except this was all warm and maternal, not hot and charged with sexual tension.

     Clarke had seemed so ungrateful after that. Unfriendly, too, and it had taken Raven a long time to pry the whole story out of her, and they’d been at odds over Finn for so long. The worst of it was that when Abby finally got to the ground, when they were all finally reunited, she didn’t care about Raven at all. Not anymore. Not now that she had her precious Clarke back. And Raven had quietly seethed and thought that it was typical, of her life, that she couldn’t even hang onto a mother figure for a few short months.

     But Abby had taken the chip to save Raven - only Raven. And Clarke had become one of her closest friends.

     Raven had almost started to think that she might be able to build her own little family. Almost.

     There’s a feather-light touch on the inside of her knee, hands gently pushing her legs apart, and Raven opens her eyes. It’s Echo down there, and she’s got her serious-warrior-face on, but her hands are so soft.

     “Close, Raven,” she murmurs. “Just a little more.”

     Raven hums in agreement, lets her head drop back against the couch, pulls her knees up to her chest and braces her hands against them. Bellamy’s hand is warm and solid on her shoulder, his fingers digging in so tightly that Raven’s skin dents under them.

     “You’re okay,” Harper says, soothing, and Raven doesn’t realise that she’s sobbing with the effort until she hears herself, startlingly loud in the quiet room.

     It’s messy. It’s blood, and pain, and it seems right, somehow, that this is how life starts. Raven knows that this is how it ends. Full circle, she thinks, looking at the blood.

     “The head,” Echo announces, and Harper covers her mouth with a hand.

     Bellamy leans closer to Raven, says, “Come on, breathe,” like she’s going to forget, and his voice is so low.

     She breathes. Sucks air in, whooshes it out. Her whole body shakes with it, trembling, because it’s something special happening. Something miraculous.

     It’s a gush of blood and stinging pain and the sharp feeling of the air in Raven’s lungs-

     -and her child slides out of her body and onto the soft seat of the chair.

     Echo’s hands are right there, catching the baby’s head and shoulders, pulling the infant upright and pressing it straight onto Raven. There’s blood on her shirt and tiny fists waving and a mouth at her collarbone. A twisted rope still connects them, body-to-body, blood-to-blood. The baby squirms and it shivers along the umbilical cord all the way inside Raven, like they’re still sharing one body.

     And against her skin she feels the tiny exhaling puffs of air when her daughter starts to cry for the first time.


	2. The Raven Bit (2150) Part 2

_July_

     “Raven. Raven!”

     She opens her eyes and Emori is right there, eyes wide and fearful, the black ring of the tattoo on her face standing out in stark relief.

     “What?” Raven mumbles, mouth fuzzy with sleep. She aches everywhere and her arm has gone numb. When she glances down to her side she sees the baby, still there, tucked against her. A head of thick dark hair, tiny eyelashes and a soft, snub little nose.

     “There’s a problem,” Emori says. “Can you get up? Bellamy needs you.”

     Raven rubs the back of her hand across her eyes. “Yeah,” she says, “yeah, give me a second.” She tries to kick her brain into gear but she’s so damn tired. The baby stirs when Raven moves and she glances down in time to see the deep grey eyes blinking open.

     It’s freezing in here, Raven thinks, when she pushes the blanket away. She’s kinda surprised to notice that she’s not wearing any pants. How long has she been asleep?

     Emori thrusts a pair of pants at her right as Raven’s thinking it. “Here,” she says. “Where’s your leg shell?”

     “Brace,” Raven says. She twists her upper body and points towards the back of the room. Still sitting on the recliner chair, she slides her legs into the pants, squirms to pull them up her hips and then reaches out for the leg brace when Emori brings it. Once it’s strapped into place, Raven slides off the chair. Her knee buckles and she grabs the back of the chair to steady herself.

     “Can you walk?” Emori asks.

     “Yeah,” Raven says. Everything aches. There’s cramping low in her belly and her eyes are stinging with exhaustion. She takes an unsteady step forward, then another, and then gets back into the rhythm of it, a slow, rolling walk. There’s no more extra weight on her front to compensate for, just the crumpled remains of her belly. Weird, Raven thinks. And she’s starving as hell.

     “Will you stay with the baby?” she calls over her shoulder as she reaches the door.

     “Are you sure?”

      Raven swivels around and looks at the uncertainty on Emori’s face. “You’ll be fine,” she says. “Pick her up if she cries.” She turns and limps out of the room.

     Bellamy is halfway down the corridor and moving towards Raven. He stops when he sees her and says, “Good, I thought something was wrong. Come on, hurry.”

     “What’s happened?” Raven asks. It’s cold out here, too, and she pulls her jacket on over her shirt.

     “Something’s broken in the environmental controls,” Bellamy says. “The temperature’s been fluctuating for hours. Monty thought he fixed it but it just keeps getting colder.” He grimaces. “We’re losing the algae.”

     “Shit,” Raven says. She increases her speed. “What did he do?”

     “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him.”

     “How long have I been asleep?”

     “Almost twelve hours,” Bellamy says. “Twenty-eight hours since the baby was born.”

     Raven glances over at him. “Are you going to keep doing that?”

     “What?”

     “Getting her age right down to the hours?”

     He shrugs, but the corner of his mouth tips up. “I don’t know,” he says. “Is Emori with her?”

     “Uh huh.”

     “I might go check on them.” He stops walking, but Raven stops, too, catching at his arm.

     “Don’t,” she says.

     “Why not?”

     “I want Emori to know we trust her.”

     “We don’t trust her,” Bellamy protests.

     “You know that saying? It takes a village to raise a child?”

     Bellamy rolls his eyes. “Seriously, Raven?”

     “Bellamy, like it or not, we’re stuck up here _with these people_ for the next five years. It’s going to be a lot easier if we all just try to get along.” Raven pauses, then says, “Besides, I’m not looking after the baby the whole time.”

     “I’ll help you.”

     “Yeah, and so will everyone else. So give Emori a chance with her, okay?”

     Bellamy sighs, which means that he knows she’s making sense. “Let’s just get you to Monty,” he says.

 

     “I’m telling you, it’s a wire issue,” Raven says. “The system up here is shit, it’s always been like this.”

     “Yeah, and I’m agreeing with you,” Monty says. “But you don’t need a hard reset for that. Just use the breaker!”

     “Monty, the breakers are shit too. I’m not risking either of us getting electrocuted.”

     “We can’t cut the power.”

     “It’ll only be for a few minutes! We fill the air cylinders and breathe from those if we have to.” Raven rubs at her nose with the back of her wrist. “It’s way too cold already. If it gets any worse we’ll lose the algae.”

     “If we turn power off there’s no guarantee we’ll get it back on again.”

     “What’s the alternative?”

     There’s silence for a moment. Monty says, “The baby can’t breathe from an oxygen mask. Her face is too small.”

     Raven curls her hands into fists. “The baby can’t survive in this cold for much longer, either. _None_ of us can. And we’re going to run out of food. Monty-”

     “Okay,” he interrupts. “Okay.” He stares at Raven, soft brown eyes and a turned-down mouth. “What if we wear the gloves from the radiation suits? Rubber insulation, in case the breakers fail.”

     She shakes her head. “No good. They’re too thick - it’s impossible to do anything with my fingers in those.” She glances down at his hands, the soft new skin under his freshly-healed burns. “You know that. Anyway, we’re just as screwed with power as without it right now. The temperature isn’t coming back up, Monty.”

     Monty glares at the floor. “If the power doesn’t come back on afterwards…”

     “I know.”

     “What if changing the wires doesn’t solve the problem?”

     “Then we’ll think of something new,” Raven says.

     “I don’t like it.”

     “Me neither.” She pauses. “It’ll be two minutes, Monty.”

     “Okay.”

     “Yeah?” Raven says. “Okay?”

     Monty is nodding as she pushes herself onto her feet. “I hope you’re right,” he says.

     Raven hopes so too. Wow, she really hopes so. “Go tell the others to get ready,” she says. “Run.”

     Monty runs.

 

     She’s done harder things than this. She built a bomb on a bridge with blood streaming from her nose and bubbling in her throat.

     Raven stares down at the wires behind the temperature control system and hopes that she’s made the right call. She’s stripped and replaced two already, and there’s a third one that’s blackened but they’ve been without airflow for three minutes now. She can feel how thin the air is when she tries to breathe it in. Every few breaths, she inhales from the oxygen bottle by her side. Just to make sure she doesn’t pass out.

     One more minute, Raven thinks. They’ll be okay for one more minute.

     _Even the baby?_

     She can’t let feelings influence her judgement. The wire needs to be changed. “One more,” she says, her voice tinny in the stale air.

     “Hurry.”

     Raven ignores that, because she’s been working as fast as she can. And she might know how to change a wire, but this isn’t exactly her area of expertise. She was a mechanic on the Ark before, not an electrician.

     Carefully, she snips the blackened section of wire away. She strips the insulation from the edges of the old wires and inspects them, looking for any more bad spots, and then she slides fresh insulation into place. “Where’s the last wire?” It’s dark with the power off, and the flashlight Monty is holding doesn’t illuminate much.

     Monty shuffles closer and presses it into her hand. “Here.”

     Raven strips the insulation off the ends of the new piece, too, and jams the bare wires into the new insulation. She stops to breathe life into her frozen fingers. Her teeth are chattering together.

     How cold must the baby be?

     Don’t think about that, Raven tells herself. She reaches for the crimper and presses down on the wires under the insulation, sealing them up tight. “Done,” she tells Monty, and she pushes the wire back into place and slips the console over the top of it. She fumbles for the oxygen bottle, puts the mask to her face and takes a deep breath while Monty moves back to the generator.

     “Ready?” he asks.

     Raven nods. Monty flips the lever.

     Nothing happens. One second, two seconds. Raven sucks in another breath from the bottle. Five seconds, six…

     There’s a hum and a whirr as the generator comes back to life and the Ring is flooded with light. Air starts to blow through the vents again, and Raven drops the bottle and struggles to her feet, crossing to stand beside Monty.

     They stare down at the readouts on his old, cracked tablet. _Temperature: -60C/-76F_

     “Come on,” Raven mutters.

     _Temperature: -60.5C/-77F_

     “Shit,” she says.

     Monty puts a hand on her shoulder. “Give it a second.” His voice is muffled behind the scarf he’s wearing around his head.

     _Temperature:_ _-61C/-77.8F_

     “It’s not working,” Raven says. “We’ve done something wrong.” She curls her fingers up into her hands and shoves them in her armpits. Her teeth clatter together and she bites down on her lip to stop them.

     “Just wait.”

     Raven pictures the baby; brand new, only thirty-one hours old, like Bellamy keeps telling her. She thinks of the tiny fingers turning black, and the lips turning blue, and the little body shivering and shivering until it stops. A spasm runs through her abdomen and she turns away from Monty, hunching her body over and blinking against the tears which sting in the back of her eyes.

     “Why can’t anything in this stupid place ever just _work?_ ”

     Monty squeezes. “Raven.”

     “I hate this fucking place!” Her nose is running with cold and she wipes her sleeve across it.

     “I know,” Monty says, quietly. “But look.” He holds the tablet out. Raven looks.

     _Temperature: -60C/-76F_

     Raven closes her eyes for a second and says, “Oh my god. It worked.” She opens her eyes again.

     _Temperature: -58C/-72.4F_

     “You were right,” Monty says. “Do you want to gloat now?”

     Raven looks at him and gives a bark of laughter. Just for a second, and then her smile fades and she says, “I have to check on the baby.”

     “Go on. I’ll stay here and make sure nothing changes.”

     “Thanks,” she says, and she takes off as fast as she can, her bad leg swinging awkwardly, the extra layers of clothing making movement even harder.

     She passes the algae farm first, cracks the door open enough to stick her head in and says, “Bellamy?”

     He jumps up from the chair, the oxygen bottle falling from his lap onto the floor. “Did it work?”

     “I think so,” Raven says. It’s warmer in here than the rest of the Ark. Slightly. “Where’s the baby?”

     “In Med,” Murphy answers her, and she turns her head to take him in. He’s wearing a ragged, patchwork collection of clothing and a really stupid-looking straw hat.

     “The algae?” Raven asks.

     Bellamy holds out a hand and makes swaying motions. “We’ve done everything we could.”

     They’re both damp, Raven notices, and Murphy is still holding a paddle and she thinks maybe. Maybe. Algae is hard to kill.

     She backs out of the room and pulls the door closed with a pneumatic hiss before she turns and stumbles down the corridor. Her feet are like blocks of ice, and it’s hard enough for her to stay upright at the best of times, but she doesn’t stop walking. Her bad leg throbs and she pushes through the pain and walks faster, faster.

     Harper, Echo and Emori are huddled together, the three of them, wrapped in clothes and blankets. Raven stops in the doorway and stares at them. She doesn’t see the baby. She does see frozen tear tracks on Harper’s face.

     “Oh god,” she says, and she wants to drop to her knees but one of her legs doesn’t bend and so she settles for grabbing at the arm of the chair beside her. “The baby. Did she-”

     “No!” Emori says quickly. “No, Raven, she’s alive.”

     “Where?”

     Emori and Harper look at Echo, and Echo doesn’t exactly smile, but there’s a little curve to the line of her mouth and her eyes bore into Raven. She tugs the neck of her parka away from her throat and Raven steps closer and glances down.

     She sees the baby’s hair first. Thick and black, and underneath it that tiny, scrunched up face, pressed against the skin of Echo’s chest. The baby’s body is tight against Echo, feet tucked into the skin of her stomach, a fist curled into the edge of Echo’s sort-of-bra.

     “Huh,” Raven says.

     Echo lets go so that the neck of her shirt and the parka she’s wearing over it snap back into place. “She is warm,” she says.

     Raven releases a breath she didn’t know she was holding. “Thank you.”

    

     Bellamy is the one who knows how to wrap a too-big cloth diaper around a baby and tie it in place without any pins. “I used to do this all the time,” he says. “Octavia was the worst. She kept peeing on me.”

     Raven laughs. “I can’t wait to tell her you said that.”

     He rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling as he tips the baby up and leans her against his shoulder, rubbing her back and shifting his weight, foot-to-foot. “Have you thought about a name yet?”

     “Sort of,” Raven says, watching him. He’s a natural with the baby. She only wishes it would come as easily to her. She feels uncomfortable holding the infant, breast-feeding is even weirder than she’d thought it would be, and all of this post-birth stuff is crap. Echo was the one who’d taught Raven to stuff her underwear with cloth for the bleeding that just _would not stop_. That was how they’d done it on the ground.

     Bellamy’s hand splays over the baby’s tiny back and he turns his head to touch his nose against her ear. “Well, what names fit? What do you think she looks like?”

     “I don’t know,” Raven says, and then, honestly, “I kind of think she looks like you.”

     “Maybe.” He looks over at her and then down at the ground. “How much earlier was it - with Finn?”

     “Almost two weeks.”

     “Do you mind? Whose it is?”

     “No,” Raven says. “I seriously don’t care. I mean, this is so far from ideal - but she’s here now. And you know what? She’s kind of perfect.”

     “She is,” Bellamy says, that soft, goofy grin on his face. “She’s a little star.”

     _Star_ , Raven thinks, and she’d wanted her baby to have a space name, right? But Star isn’t quite right and she turns the idea over in her head before setting it aside. She’ll figure it out. She’s got nothing but time.

 

     The algae dies off two days later. In batches, not all at once, and they rush to harvest what they can but it’s not enough.

     “It’s okay,” Monty says. “We’ll just start up a new crop. It won’t take more than a couple of weeks now that temperature controls are back.”

     “Yeah, but we’re low on rations,” Raven says.

     “So we’ll go hungry for a little while.” Bellamy shrugs. “It’s not like we haven’t done it before.”

     They reduce their portions drastically and everyone gets an equal share, which is great, until Harper tips her plate onto Raven’s that ‘night’.

     “What are you doing?”

     Harper smiles. “I’m not hungry.”

     “Like hell you’re not!”

     “It’s a waste, if I’m not hungry,” Harper says, and she crosses the room and plucks the baby up out of Bellamy’s lap and coos at her, beaming.

     It’s a one-off, Raven thinks, until it’s Monty giving her his rations the next day, and both Bellamy and Echo do it the day after that.

     “Okay, seriously,” she says, when Bellamy has scraped the last of his beans onto Raven’s plate with a mangled fork. “What are you doing?”

     “We’re donating food to our favourite person,” Monty says, winking.

     “That’s really sweet but-”

     “Not you,” Bellamy says.

     “What?”

     “We’re doing it for baby Emori,” Emori says, and she takes another bite of food and then pushes her plate across the table to Raven.

     “Okay,” Raven says. “I’m still not calling her that. But - thanks.”

    

_August_

     It takes another six weeks for Raven to figure out the baby’s name. She only _knows_ it’s been six weeks because Bellamy keeps popping up with that stupid tablet and telling her the date. So they’re in the last days of August when Raven takes the baby to stand by the window and she figures it out.

     “See the stars?” she says, pointing them out. “You’re going to spend a lot of time with them for the first few years, but don’t worry. We’re getting back down to the ground. Mama’s got a plan.”

     The baby stares up at Raven with huge eyes. She sucks her fist into her mouth and Raven smiles, touches the tiny upturned nose.

     “Nova,” she whispers.

 

     “Why’d you pick it?” Bellamy asks, when she tells him.

     “I told you, I wanted a space name.”

     “Nova?”

     “It means new star. Or,” Raven corrects, “a star that suddenly gets brighter, for a little while.”

     Bellamy grins. “She’s the brightest little star.”

     “You’re so sappy.”

     “Yeah,” he says, reaching out and plucking the baby from her arms. He settles Nova against his broad chest and she stares up at his face. “Nova. I like it.”

     Raven says, “Good.”

 

     “I’ve noticed, by the way,” Raven says to Murphy, when she catches him alone in the corridor.

     He glances at her, eyes flickering from her face, to the baby, and down to her bad leg. “What?”

     “You haven’t held the baby.”

     “Oh,” Murphy says. He shrugs. “I’m not really a baby guy.”

     “It’s going to happen some time,” Raven says, because it is, and she’d rather get it over with now.

     “I didn’t think you’d want-”

     “I don’t.” Raven puts Nova up against her shoulder, uses her free hand to hook a loose strand of hair over her ear. “Look, Murphy, in a perfect world, you’d go one way and I’d go the other way and I’d never see you again.”

     He grunts. “Fair.”

     “But we’re stuck up here together, okay? We’re like some… weird, shitty space family. _All_ of us. Which means that, like it or not, I’m going to have to trust you not to strangle, or stab, or shoot, or just generally beat on my daughter. Right?”

     “Yeah,” Murphy says, “I guess so.”

     “So hold the damn baby.”

     There’s a hesitation before Murphy holds out his arms, and fear in his face, and Raven almost laughs at it. He’s fine with murder and mayhem but babies freak him out?

     “Am I doing it right?” he asks, nervously, as she settles Nova into his arms.

     “I’ve had her for less than two months, how the hell would I know?”

     “Is she okay?” Murphy stares at Nova’s face, and the baby scrunches up her nose and opens her mouth wide. Anxiously, he says, “Why’s she doing that? Did I hurt her?”

     “She’s yawning. Just don’t drop her. You’ll be fine.” Raven takes a step back, watches Murphy hold the baby. It’s fine. He’s got an arm under her head, and another supporting her body, and it’s fine. “Okay,” Raven says. “I gotta go check the water reclaimer.”

     “Wait! What do I do with her?”

     Raven flashes him a quick grin. “Just hang on. I’ll meet you in Med in an hour.” She wiggles her fingers at Murphy, tries not to laugh at the horrified look on his face. “Bye.”

     He calls after her as she limps away. “Wait! Come back! The baby smells!”

     Raven presses her arm up against her face and hopes that he doesn’t hear her snickering.

 

_September_

     September 13th was the day the hundred had been sent to the ground. Plus Bellamy. Raven had followed eleven days later, but she marks the one-year anniversary with the rest of them. It’s a bittersweet sort of day. Monty becomes very quiet. He gets away from the group towards the middle of the day, and they all know enough to leave him be.

     Murphy seems to want to share memories. He drinks some of the moonshine that they find in the Chancellor’s rooms (which doesn’t surprise Raven at all, she’d always thought Jaha or Diana Sydney would have a stash somewhere) and he talks. The rest of them listen, and Emori asks questions, and Bellamy and Harper interrupt when they feel like it’s being told wrong.

     Raven tries to imagine what it was like, those first few days. She can’t. By the time she got down there, camp was already thriving, and she had other things to worry about. Communicating with the Ark. Grounders attacking. Her boyfriend’s new feelings. Everything changing.

     She misses Finn. Badly. Looking down at Nova, Raven tries to see anything in the baby’s tiny features that would give her a clue. There are brown eyes, which doesn’t mean anything - and bow-shaped pink lips that could be from anyone.

     It doesn’t matter, Raven tells herself. It doesn’t matter where the baby came from. Raven doesn’t care. She’d been stupid - sleeping with Finn to try and prove to herself that they still worked, when she knew too well that they didn’t. And then Bellamy because she’d been angry, and frustrated, and had wanted desperately to know if it was _her_. If she was the problem. Raven can remember standing in front of him, mostly naked and jutting her jaw out to try and hide the fear that he’d say _no_.

     At the time, it would have crushed her, no matter how unfazed she pretended to be. Now she wishes Bellamy had turned her down.

     But it’s not right to think that when it’s too late. Raven strokes Nova’s tiny arm, lets the baby wrap a hand around her finger and cling on tightly. It doesn’t matter if she’s not good at this. It doesn’t matter if it’s Finn’s baby, or Bellamy’s, or maybe even Wick’s. Nova is always going to be Raven’s. And, okay, so mothering isn’t like mechanics. It’s not coming easily, and there’s no burning knowledge jumping into Raven’s head and she can’t puzzle through it until it all makes sense.

     She can still do this. She _can_.

 

     Things gradually fall into a routine over the next few weeks. Monty insists that they check the algae every two hours. Raven thinks it’ll be fine to do every four hours. Bellamy supersedes them both and orders that the monitoring happens every three hours. Water temperature, carbon dioxide levels, and the paddles to make sure the surface algae don’t steal all the light. Harvest every five days.

     That’s why he’s in charge, Raven supposes. Bellamy is the one who sets up the algae-schedule. And then, a few days later, he’s the one who sets up the Nova-schedule too.

     It makes sense, the way he explains it. Raven’s the mechanic. It's stupid for her to always be tied up with the baby, and all of them need sleep, sooner or later. They’re stuck up here together. Might as well make the best of it.

     Raven’s still the only one who can feed the baby - and that’s a weird feeling, every time she remembers it. She’s somebody’s _mom_ now. Seriously. It’s insane.

     And so things settle down and Raven starts to think that maybe they can actually do this for five years. They’ll just be a thriving little society up here and one day soon she’ll magically figure out the fuel crisis and they’ll coast on down to Earth; and down there everyone will emerge from the bunker and they’ll all build another thriving little society together.

     Yeah. Maybe.


	3. The Echo Bit (2150/2151)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like Echo, she's fun times. Getting into her voice wasn't too tricky, but hopefully it feels Echo enough and also not-Raven enough, because I don't wanna be blurring all my POVs. Also as you may have noticed, I gave her a sob-backstory in this fic. Why? Because I felt like it. But that's fairly minor.
> 
> The other thing that's fairly minor is the Bellamy/Echo stuff. I don't particularly ship them, because I feel like their relationship is more complex than that (especially at this point in time) but I do like exploring that relationship. If you do ship them, feel free to interpret anything you read as romantic. If you don't, feel free to not. If you passionately hate them ever interacting, I can't help. Sorry. I know the shipping for this show can get crazy.

_December_

     Space is cold.

     In some respects, that makes it like home. But there’s no sun in the sky for Echo to turn her face towards. She doesn’t feel the light warming her skin. There’s no moon to sit beneath at night.

     She can still see the moon, which makes it worse. It floats. Just floats, nothing to hold it up, and it horrifies her. She feels sick when she looks at the moon. Sicker even than when she looks at the round ball of the Ground, covered in angry red clouds.

     How did they ever stay on something so round?

     Bellamy says it’s called gravity. The force that pulls you down when you fall. He doesn’t mind explaining it to her.

     Echo wishes he wouldn’t. She’s not used to this - not used to being a child, trembling and scared of things she can’t understand. It’s worse that the rest of them all understand. Knowledge that was passed down to the Sky People, that somehow _Azgeda_ never received. Laws that governed Echo’s life, and she never knew they existed.

     Emori is handling it better. That smarts, too, that the _Frikdreina_ is quicker at all of it, up here. It’s not just that she has Murphy, either. It’s something about Emori’s mind that processes faster. A wonder in her eyes when she looks at the moon, and the Earth, and the quick flashes of the sun. She can talk with the rest of them about space, about stars, about planets.

     None of it sits right with Echo. She’s not supposed to _be_ here.

 

     Bellamy catches her standing by one of the windows, staring out at her world down below.

     “I know it looks bad,” he says.

     “It looks like…” she can’t find the words to say what she feels.

     “Hell,” Bellamy says.

     “Hell?”

     “The bad place. Fire and brimstone and eternal torment.”

     Echo folds her arms beneath her breasts. “No one could have survived down there.”

     It’s not the Sky People she’s thinking of. It’s not even that underground sanctuary. It’s her people, and her home, and everything that they will have lost. Not just humans. Plants, animals. Cities. Fallen trees and toppled buildings. Everything is gone, and they’ll be starting over with nothing. _Nothing_. Only seven of them.

     Bellamy sucks in a sharp breath. “Maybe,” he says, and his voice is almost steady enough to hide what he’s feeling.

     Almost.

     Echo wants to apologise, but she doesn’t. She wants to ask for reassurance. It’s a weak, pathetic feeling; an ache in her chest and a lump in her throat and this foolish _need_ to hear him say it. That everything is going to be okay. That in five years it will all suddenly, magically go back to the way it was. That they haven’t lost _everything_.

     She’d lost everything even before Praimfaya.

     It’s not in Echo’s nature to dwell on the past. She’d been loyal to a lot of people; her mother, her sister, her mentor. Her Queen. Roan. She’d lost them all. Each time, Echo had found someone new. Someone else to fight for.

     She doesn’t want to be fighting for herself.

     “Your people,” she says to Bellamy. “You think they survived?”

     “I think so,” he says. He looks away from her, staring at the red planet, his eyes unfocused. Looking for his sister. “I hope so.”

     “I’ll help you find them,” Echo says. “When we go down. I’ll help.”

     “I know. They’re your people too.”

     No, Echo thinks. Not anymore. “I have no people.”

     “You do,” Bellamy says. He drops his hand onto her shoulder.

     Echo shakes her head. “You took me in out of pity,” she says, bluntly. “Or fear.”

     “It wasn’t either.” Bellamy lets his hand slide off, fall back to hang at his side. “You’ll figure it out,” he tells her.

     Echo doesn’t turn to watch him walk away.

 

_January_

     Monty says, “Watch out!” and Murphy says, “Get out of the way!” and they both shove past Echo in the tight space of the corridor. She flattens herself against the metal wall to avoid the boys and then turns to stare after them.

     Emori walks up more slowly. “You look cold,” she observes.

     Echo is never cold. She turns towards the mutant, scowling. Emori has the baby in her arms.

     “What-” Echo starts to ask, but she’s cut off, this time by Bellamy and Raven rushing after the other two. Both Emori and Echo put their backs to the wall to make room. Raven is moving with that unsteady, rolling gait, and Bellamy is carrying the toolkit and slowing his pace for her - enough that Raven has to know he’s doing it. There’s a fierce glare on her face but she doesn’t stop to speak. Neither of them do.

     “Something important, I think,” Emori says. “I don’t know.”

     The wrapping around her deformed hand has shifted. It makes Echo sick, to see the tip of the mutated claw poking free. Seeing it pressed up against the baby like that.

     She almost reaches out for Nova; to take Nova away from the _Frikdreina._ Echo holds herself back just barely, but Emori must see some trace of it on her face. Some twitch of aborted motion.

     “Nova’s fine,” she says. “She’s fine with me.”

     “I know.”

     “I can look after her just as well as the rest of you,” Emori insists. “John can, too. Raven trusts us.”

     “Of course,” Echo says. She can’t manage to sound convincing.

     Emori narrows her eyes. “We’re not the only ones who did bad things on the Ground.”

     Well, that’s true. Echo won’t deny it. But everything she did - all of it - she did out of love. Out of loyalty. Can Emori say that?

     Maybe. There’s something between her and Murphy, they all know that. Echo isn’t sure if it’s love so much as a shared spirit. They each recognise themselves in the other.

     Nova doesn’t seem to care who’s holding her. She’s got a chubby fist tight in Emori’s hair, tugging on it. Her legs are hidden in blankets, but Echo can see the movement where the baby kicks. So far, Nova has grown two tiny white bottom teeth, with a lot of grizzling and complaint. The rest of her smile is gummy and pink and empty, but it spreads wide across her face, plumping her cheeks and brightening her eyes.

     Echo reaches out to touch the baby-soft head, smooth her hand down the long strip of dark hair.

     “We should go after them,” she says, and the lights flicker out.

     They’ve been weak before, and dim, and flickering, but this is properly off. All of them. Every light. The corridor is plunged into pitch blackness and Echo freezes. She’s grown used to the light up here. She’s forgotten how to be in the dark. Her chest tightens and her breath catches and she feels the first stirrings of fear - that immense, all-consuming, unnatural fear that she’d never noticed on the ground.

     Panic kills. Echo knows this. She’s not a child, new to the world. She takes a breath in. Lets it out slowly. Grounds herself.

     She shifts her feet and hears the metal floor rub against the soft soles of her boots. Her palm is on Nova’s head, fingers brushing the baby’s ear. Emori is behind Nova. Echo knows the corridor - she knows the twists and turns, the rooms that it leads to. It doesn’t matter if it’s dark. She can still see.

     “Do you think it’s all the power?” Emori murmurs. “The air, too?”

     Air. Breathing. It’s easy to forget all the things they’d taken for granted back home. “I don’t know,” Echo says. “But you should take Nova-”

     “To the hydro farm,” Emori interrupts. “I _know_ , Echo. I know what to do.”

     “I will find out what’s happening.”

     The black of the corridor isn’t absolute, Echo realises after the first few steps. There are little glimmers of light, tiny like stars, shining green or red on the walls. It’s not enough to help her see, but it’s there anyway.

     She finds herself putting her hands out in front of her, stretching her eyes wide to try and penetrate the gloom. And that’s not helping either. If the lights come back on suddenly, Echo will go night-blind - the way it happens on the Ground, when someone strikes a fire that you’re not prepared for. A surge of colours behind your eyelids and having to blink the world back in.

     Echo closes her eyes. She moves faster this way, tricking herself into thinking that it’s normal. Her hands fumble across the wall, across doors, and she knows where she is, but not where the rest of them are.

     Imagine being alone up here. Echo shudders thinking about it, feels the emptiness around her and she needs-

     -needs to find them. Find Bellamy. And like her thoughts had summoned him, she hears his voice. Then the rest of them, all talking at once, talking over each other.

     Her hands come up against the edge of the door, and Echo slides inside. She doesn’t know this room. Hasn’t spent time it in before. The others call it the Chancellor’s room, and they’ve stayed well away after pillaging it for furniture and supplies in the first weeks.

      In the darkness, Echo stands quiet and listens.

     “You said that she wouldn’t be a problem,” Bellamy is saying.

     “She’s not!” Raven says. “Clarke pulled the kill switch, okay? ALIE is _gone._ ”

     “Right,” Murphy scoffs. “So why’s the station acting so weird?”

     “It isn’t!” Monty exclaims. “This is just a fluke, it’s nothing-”

     “It’s not nothing,” Bellamy says. Low voice. Serious. “And, Raven, seriously - something bad _always_ happens.”

     “She’s dead,” Raven says. “And even if she wasn’t, she can’t fit in the mainframe - that’s not possible. There’s no way ALIE can control the station.”

     “The lights, Raven?”

     “I don’t know what’s up with the lights,” Raven snaps. “There’s always something wrong with the lights.”  

     “Monty,” Bellamy orders.

     “Yeah,” Monty says, his voice soft. Defeated. “I’ll go and check all the weak spots again. Maybe it’s just a wiring issue that we missed.”

     “Murphy, go with him.”

     Echo backs away from the door, feels the rush of air against her neck when the two of them go past. It’s getting colder in here. Maybe because the lights are out. Maybe something more. Echo doesn’t understand this floating space home. She hates the way it works; hates that it’s a puzzle that everyone else can solve.

     Raven says, “I’m telling you, Bellamy, she can’t fit up here. The system is junk, there’s no processing power for her. It’d be like trying to fit… like trying to fit you inside me.”

     Bellamy says, “Um,” and then, “D’you mean-”

     “Not like that, you idiot. Something big, and something small. Like stuffing a horse inside a chicken. It’s not possible, okay? There’s not enough space for the code.”

     Echo listens to the casual rebuke and wonders if she’s reading the situation correctly. Raven doesn’t sound embarrassed. Bellamy hadn’t, either, just confused. A little startled.

     So they’ve been together. And it brings a new light to Nova, as well, thinking like that. Echo pictures the baby’s thick dark hair, her round face and her dimpled little chin. She could be Bellamy’s. It’s not unimaginable.

     “I don’t care if it’s possible,” Bellamy says. “Murphy says-”

     “Yeah,” Raven cuts in. “He says she transferred herself up there. And that’s because Emori told him that, and she’s right, but that doesn’t mean that ALIE is functional. She had hundreds of human minds keeping her sustained before, you know. Brains are like the most powerful computer you can imagine. It’s not the same as being _only_ in the Ring. Just because her code was stored here once… I mean come on, we’ve been up here a year and-”

     “Nine-and-a-half months.”

     “Nothing’s happened  for a _year_. I get that Emori was in the City of Light, but that doesn’t mean she understands everything she saw there. Bell, I know what I’m talking about! I went through everything when we first got up; I deleted all the old code, the useless code. I would have _seen_ her.”

     “And the lights? They’re getting worse, Raven.”

     “I don’t know.” Raven sighs. “I don’t know. But everything up here is shitty and more than a hundred years old. Me and Monty can fix it. Okay?”

     “You can,” Bellamy agrees. “But I still need you to look for ALIE. A proper look. Scan everything. I don’t care how long it takes. I just need to know it’s done. Okay?”

     There’s an exasperated snort from Raven. She says, “Whatever,” and Echo can hear the footsteps, the slight squeak of the brace as Raven leaves the room.

     Echo says, “Bellamy.”

     “Echo?”

     He can’t see her, she reminds herself, even if her senses are well-attuned enough to spot his outline through the dark. A shadow; an absence of light, not a presence.

     “What do you want me to do?”

     There’s barely a hesitation before Bellamy says, “Go after her. Make sure she’s okay.”

     And Echo does what she always does. She obeys.

 

     Some people are born leaders. Echo’s seen them; men and women who could hold an entire crowd still with nothing but their voice, whose physical manifestation was so powerful that they seemed to tower over everyone else.

     Lexa had ruled through ideas; the idea of _Heda,_ of the Coalition, with an iron fist and a will of steel. Even Queen Nia had bowed before Lexa’s will, eventually. The Queen had ruled through fear, by striking out hard and fast and often enough to keep her people down. Kept her warriors cruel, and fearless, angry and hungry for blood. Riled them up and then released them like a pack of mad dogs. Like a flood, washing away anyone who stood against her.

     Echo had been proud to be one of Nia’s pack. She’s never been that sort of a person - a leader. She can take charge when she needs to, and keep people under her with threats and coercion. But leading isn’t what she’s meant for.

     Clarke had always managed to take charge, somehow, no matter whose people she commanded. She’d always wriggled her way into the top position with words - just words, and then lashing out suddenly, striking as fast as a snake. Echo never really made sense of it while Clarke was alive, and it’s too late to learn more now.

     But Bellamy has that power. He could take charge - could be a great leader, if only he’d accept it. Instead, his orders to the others are mostly framed as suggestions, or as requests. He doesn’t demand their respect. Doesn’t force their allegiance. He does the same thing that Clarke had done. He uses words - just words. _Actions speak louder_. Echo had been taught that as a child; had recited it as a warrior. Never speak when you can fight. Never negotiate when you can kill.

     Always words. They’re only words, and they shouldn’t mean anything to Echo but they do. It’s a different kind of leadership. Echo doesn’t understand why it works on her anyway.

 

     The lights snap on in the corridors before she catches up to Raven. Echo shields her eyes with a hand, looks through her eyelashes to try and adjust.

     “What do _you_ want?” Raven demands when Echo reaches her.

     “Bellamy sent me.”

     “To - what? Keep an eye on me?”

     “No,” Echo says. At least, she doesn’t think that’s true.

     “Uh huh,” Raven says. Rolls her eyes. “When will you guys realise that I know what I’m fucking doing?”

     Echo doesn’t have an answer. She trails along behind Raven and keeps her mouth shut.

     They step into Monitoring - all screens and lights - and Raven stops by one of the desks. She leans over and sighs.

     “You might as well make yourself comfortable,” she says. “This could take a while.”

     The chairs are in the other corner of the room. Echo takes one for herself and spins a second over towards Raven.

     “I’ll wait,” she says.

     “Why? Because Bellamy told you to?” Raven challenges. “That’s right, act like you’re a good little soldier, and maybe he’ll forget you’re a backstabbing bitch.”

     Echo narrows her eyes. “I saved his life.”

     “He saved yours too, from what I remember,” Raven says. “Oh, and you nearly blew me up once. Remember that?”

     “It was nothing personal.”

     “Yeah,” Raven says. “It didn’t feel personal.”

     Echo folds her legs up on the chair, sits back and watches Raven. She’s angry. Echo isn’t sure why. It’s not what she does - reading people, understanding people. She’s never been interested in that. But there’s a reason behind what Raven’s feeling. Echo’s starting to think that, sometimes, the reason needs to come out.

     She tests her new theory. “You’re angry,” she starts.

     “Right,” Raven drawls. She doesn’t look away from the screen.

     “With Bellamy?” Echo asks. “Why?”

     “Oh, I don’t know! Maybe because he’s always asking if I’ve got his back, but he’s never got mine?”

     “You think he doesn’t trust you,” Echo translates. She frowns. “He does.”

     “Look, Echo, this is great and all,” Raven says, “and I’m so glad you’re finally learning to have real human feelings, but I’m busy. Okay? I’ve got a crap ton of code to crawl through because Bellamy’s a paranoid anal-retentive ass.”

     “Okay?”

     “So shut up,” Raven says.

     Echo shuts up.

 

     _Real human feelings_ sticks in her head. Even when Bellamy has come in after thirteen hours to apologise and demand Raven take a break; Echo uncurls her stiff legs from the chair and it’s still replaying in her mind.

     She has feelings, doesn’t she? They’re real. She feels them.

     So they’re a little muted. That’s not _unusual -_ it’s just her. Just Echo. And she’s never needed feelings. Just a sharp blade and a keen eye and a cool head for battle.

     There’s no battle up here. No fight. Just all of them together, struggling to survive. Echo’s skills count for nothing in the sky.

     Bellamy touches her back. “Are you okay?”

     “Fine.”

     He ducks his head, bringing his face close to her face. “You’re pale. When did you last eat?”

     “I don’t know,” Echo says.

     “Come on,” Bellamy says, straightening up. He smiles, big and broad.

     Echo feels her own lips itching to smile back. She presses them together and refuses to give in. She doesn’t need to be smiling at him. They’re not friends. He leads, and she follows, and they’ll work together for as long as it takes them to get back home.

     And then what? No Roan. No _Azgeda_ \- not properly. Not any more. They’re all one _kru_ now, and Echo doesn’t belong. She doesn’t know how.

     The eating hall is a narrow, windowless room, and the long tables set out in the middle had held computers and bunches of wires before Monty and Raven had taken them all. The chairs are all empty, but Echo sits in the same place anyway.

     Bellamy brings bowls of algae to them both. He sits opposite Echo, in the spot that Harper usually takes, and he asks, “What’s on your mind?”

     “What?”

     “You’re looking very serious.” He scoops up a mouthful and chews steadily. “More serious than usual.”

     She doesn’t want to talk about it, but Bellamy won’t leave it alone. Echo knows this. He’s always pushing - he just keeps pushing and pushing, and tries to assuage her fears and address her doubts and she hates it. _Hates_ it.

     “Is Nova yours?” she asks instead.

     Now it’s Bellamy who is shifting uncomfortably; Bellamy who looks like he wants to leave the conversation. Good. Let him learn how it feels to not have all the answers.

     “I… don’t know.”

     “You haven’t asked?”

     “No,” he says, resting his elbows on the tabletop. “Raven doesn’t know.”

     “Oh. You are not together?”

     “No. But it doesn’t matter,” Bellamy adds quickly. “Nova’s still mine. She’s all of ours.”

     Echo wonders who he’s trying to convince.

 

_February_

     The baby is one thing that is the same in the sky as on the ground.

     None of the rest of them have much experience with babies. Bellamy does, but the others? The way they explain it to Echo is that babies were rare in the sky. Each family was only allowed one. No siblings, no nieces or nephews, no cousins.

     Echo’s raised a baby before. She doesn’t always know where to find what she needs, but she understands some things. She knows how to soothe Nova after the baby has fed, and she recognises the grouchy, teething cry. She’s comfortable holding Nova and dressing Nova in too-big rags and settling Nova into bed.

     It’s not a skill that makes her feel useful. It’s embarrassing, because caring for babies is soft work. Echo hasn’t been soft in years. She’d been so careful never to have her own child. She’d taken the herbs when she could find them, and avoided men when she couldn’t.

     And the rest of them learn about Nova quickly. When they do need advice they go to Bellamy, not Echo. Raven’s the only one who ever asks Echo for advice.

     Raven doesn’t need advice, not that she believes that. The baby loves her, and she loves the baby, but there’s some wall between them. Echo can see it. She’d built walls around herself, too, after her mother died. After her sister died, and Echo had channelled all of that love, and that focus, into caring for her people. _All_ her people, _equally_ , and she’d never been selfish. She’d never cared for just one person. The walls had always stayed up.

     She’s not proud of caring for the baby. It’s not a skill that she can use. It’s not a behaviour that makes her stronger.

    

     The paddles make Echo stronger.

     Not the rest of watching over the algae - that’s all checking numbers that she’s memorised by rote, and monitoring systems that she doesn’t understand, and if she ever sees anything wrong she’s to call for Raven or Monty or Bellamy. She can’t fix it herself, because she’s not smart like the Sky People. Just a stupid _Azgeda_.

     (There’s no _Azgeda_ anymore, but Echo tries not to remember.)

     But the paddles, those are good. Those are easy. It’s just physical; just the movement of the blade in the water, and the muscles of Echo’s arms and chest and back aching and burning with the weight of it. She loves it. Relishes the feeling, the way her shoulders throb after a long bout with the paddles. It’s almost as good as training. As fighting.

     She misses fighting. Not the real kind - faster than thought, brutal and bloody. But the sparring that she’d done. Fighting with swords, with staves, with fists. And shooting her bow - Echo had always loved archery. And horse-riding. Running.

     There’s no training up here, but she can still run. Through the metal corridors, around and around in a circle that never ends.

     It’s not freedom, exactly, but when Echo’s chest gets tight and her breathing gets short and fast, she feels a little lighter. It’s a release; a rest from the hot ball of anger in her stomach, and the pain in her heart.

     When she stops running, the feelings all come rushing back in and Echo hates them. Hates that she can’t beat them back, the way she always used to. And she’s _trying_ , she is, but the thoughts crowd up in her mind and bump against each other. It makes it hard to sleep. The dreams never stop coming.

     She starts running when she’s supposed to be sleeping; when most of the others are sleeping and the only lights left are in the corridors. She runs and she runs and she doesn’t glance out the window towards the Earth when she runs past it.

    

     Bellamy likes to stand by the window. Echo sees him from time-to-time, when he’s supposed to be sleeping too. She doesn’t know why he stares at the Earth like that. It can’t make him feel better.

     He doesn’t stop her. He keeps his back to her and Echo runs past and they both pretend they haven’t seen one another.

 

     She only pauses at the window once, and it’s when Bellamy isn’t there. Echo presses one hand flat up against the glass. It’s smooth, cold and hard, like ice. Echo’s seen glass before, but the glass on the ground was covered with a spiderweb of cracks and frosty with age. This glass is perfect and clear and the only thing protecting her from the outside. The outside where Echo’s world floats, a ball covered with roiling red clouds, and around it is nothing. Just nothing. The sort of nothing that would kill her in an instant, Raven says.

     Echo wonders what her ancestors would think of her now. Every clan has different beliefs, but in _Azgeda_ they give ancestors to the ice. When the ice takes their bodies, their souls are free; usually their souls come back in some way. In animals, most of the time. White foxes and white hares and seals under the ice. The strongest of souls come back in white bears. Echo had always imagined that she’d become a white bear, after she died. Still fierce enough to defend her people.

     She wonders what will happen if she dies up here. With no one to say the rites or purify her body, maybe her soul will roam. There are angry souls, sometimes - they howl with the wind. Souls with nowhere to rest, with no people to watch over.

     That’s what will happen to Echo. Because her people are _gone_ and their home is _gone_ and probably even the white bears have been killed by the wave of death which swept over her world. Her whole world.

     When the stinging starts behind her eyes, Echo puts a hand up to cover her mouth. She makes sure the tears fall silently, because she can’t bear the rest of them to know. And she’d been so sure the grieving was over - it was done - but a fresh wave of it sweeps across her and she drops her forehead against the glass until the world disappears behind her tears.

     Echo doesn’t know how much time has passed when she hears the person behind her. It’s just a little sound - a boot scuffing against the metal floor - but she brings her sleeves up to her face and rubs furiously at the tears before she turns.

     It’s Bellamy. Of course it is. He’s always the one there when she’s at her weakest.

     “Go away, Bellamy,” Echo says, and her voice barely wavers. She turns back to the window, tries to wipe at her face again, at her running nose. She doesn’t dare to sniff, because he’ll hear her, and he’ll know.

     As if he doesn’t know already. He’s not leaving, and Echo sighs.

     She feels him step closer until he’s just behind her. She can sense him there, with a warrior’s intuition, and she wants to whirl and hit him. A punch to the gut, a knee to the groin and he’ll double over and Echo can run - run away from him, from this conversation, from the way he makes her feel.

     He’s got these dark eyes and this earnest face and it makes Echo think that she should be more like him. Warm-hearted and open and willing to love and to protect and heal. The bad things that Bellamy’s done don’t seem to shine out through his skin the way they do through Echo’s.

     She hates that he makes her remember it.

     “It’s okay, you know,” he says. His voice is a low rumble and Echo closes her eyes.

     “Go away.”

     “We all feel the same way,” Bellamy tells her. “We all need to grieve. We’ve all lost people. Homes. Families.”

     Not like she has, Echo thinks, and then is disgusted with herself. With her self-pity. It’s shameful. She steps sideways, away from Bellamy.

     “I don’t need to grieve.”

     “Echo,” he says. “You don’t have to pretend for me.”

     She doesn’t duck out of the way when Bellamy’s hand lands on her shoulder. He steps closer to her, puts his other hand on her upper arm and pulls her towards him, and Echo doesn’t fight. She lets him wrap his arms around her but she keeps her own arms up, fists tucked against her chest. Creating a wall between them.

     Bellamy doesn’t seem to mind. They’re the same height, and Echo feels the curls of his hair brush her ear, and the rough scrape of his beard against her cheek. His hand rubs the middle of her back and his other one is tangled in her hair and his breath is hot on the side of her face.

     Echo says, stiffly, “You shouldn’t.”

     “I shouldn’t what?” he asks. She feels the vibrations in his chest.

     _Do this_ , she wants to say, but that doesn’t quite explain it. The words are wrong, but Echo doesn’t know why he’s standing here. Why he’s holding her, _comforting_ her. Why he’s kind to her, over and over and over again, when she knows, _knows_ that she doesn’t deserve it. 

     If it was the other way around, she wouldn’t do the same for him.

     Echo flattens her hands out against Bellamy’s chest and pushes him away. “I’m fine,” she says. “Just tired. I’m going to my room.”

     He doesn’t speak when she walks away but Echo feels his eyes on her back anyway.

 

     She dreams about him. Not the good kind, either. Back in the cages, the metal is cold against Echo’s skin and her stomach is hollow with hunger. She winds a hand between the bars and grabs Bellamy’s throat and squeezes.

     Echo wakes with her heart pounding and the sting of the needles still in her skin. There are Mountain Men hiding in the darkness and she stares into it until her eyes water but she can’t see them. She can feel every heartbeat and every breath and the blackness of the sky around her, pressing down on her, suffocating her.

     Echo is a warrior, not a child. These are dreams; nightmares, and she doesn’t need anyone to hold her and tell her that it will be all right, that morning will come. She _doesn’t._ She never has. 

     She rolls over resolutely, pulls the blankets up to her chin and forces herself to close her eyes.


	4. The Harper and Monty Bit (2151)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh MAN this chapter took forever. It's annoying me, too, because I have a bunch of future chapters written out and I want to connect them, but this one really slowed me down.  
> Anyway! Hope you enjoy :)

_September_

The sharp edge of the PVC pipe catches the ridge over Harper’s eye, and she winces at the sting of splitting skin.

     “Ow,” she says. “Okay, okay, stop.”

     Emori bares her teeth in a fierce grin. “Are you sure?” She flicks her wrist, sending the pipe swinging an easy circle, and Harper takes a hasty step backwards.

     “Yes!” she says. “Give me a second, okay? I need a drink.”

     “You need more than a drink,” Murphy comments. “What’s that, the seventh time she’s beaten you?”

     Harper looks sidelong at him as she retreats from the training mats to the table in the corner of the room. Murphy’s feet are propped up on the wood, and his hands are folded behind his head. He smirks at her, and she rolls her eyes.

     “Don’t you have anything better to do, Murphy?”

     “Nah. I like to watch.”

     “Gross,” she says, chugs from the bottle of water until the ache in her throat dies away.

     “What’s gross about watching my girl kicking ass?”

     Harper wipes her mouth with the back of her wrist when she puts the bottle on the table again. There’s a wet feeling above her eye, and she reaches up with two fingers. They come away with bright blood on the tips, and Harper sighs.

     “You’ll have to watch her kick someone else’s ass,” she tells Murphy. “I’m done for the day.”

     “Aw,” Emori says, dropping her pipe on the mats. “Really?”

     “I’m bleeding,” Harper says. “And I’m tired anyway. Didn’t sleep well last night.”

     “Mm, me neither,” Murphy agrees. “I don’t care what Raven says, that debris on the outer walls did _not_ sound like rain.”

     “I didn’t hear anything,” Emori says, her eyes bright and face flushed from the fight, looking from one to the other.

     “Well, yeah,” Murphy drawls, “because you sleep like a rock.” He pauses for a second, grins, then adds, “And you snore.”

     “I do not!”

     “Like a pig,” he says. He snorts through his nose a few times and Emori lunges at him. She lunges, but she’s laughing, and Murphy’s got that shit-eating grin on his face, and it’s so warm and happy between the two of them.

     Harper hates third-wheeling. She’d done enough of it on the ground; with Monty and Jasper, their plans and little in-jokes, and on guard duty with Bryan and Miller, the quiet love that was always in their eyes. It’s worse with Murphy and Emori, too, because they’re so open about it. It’s not love in their eyes - it’s love over their whole damn faces, like they don’t care who knows it.

     She doesn’t bother to say goodbye when she slips out of the training room, and Harper doesn’t think they’ll notice that she’s gone. Not for a little while, anyway.

     It eats at her, seeing the love between Emori and Murphy. Harper loves Monty - she knows she does - but she’s not sure if it’s the same thing. If it’s the right kind of love; the romantic kind, the one in songs and poems and stories. She thinks it might be, but she can’t be sure. It’s impossible to know for sure, Harper thinks, and maybe it isn’t the right love. What’s she supposed to do then?

     She needs time - time to herself, time to figure out what she feels. But she doesn’t want to say that. She doesn’t want to leave him. And time alone, while they’re up here? It’s impossible.

     There’s warm, wet blood still trickling down the side of her face as she walks down the corridor. Harper wrinkles her nose and swipes it away from her ear. She hates the smell of it. The copper-iron tang makes her stomach roll and her head pound. Although, the throbbing head could be from the swollen lump rising where Emori had hit her.

     Emori fights dirty. And no matter how many times Bellamy recites that Grounder phrase at Harper, tells her _get knocked down, get back up_ , she’s kinda sick of being shoved on her ass.

     She takes herself to Med. It’s empty, and it makes sense that everyone else is busy. It’s not like they have a whole lot of illnesses or injuries to deal with. Up here, they’re pretty much either fine, or dead.

     Harper uses a pad of gauze to mop up the blood, presses it over the wound and feels the dull ache under her fingers. That’s going to bruise. She wishes Emori would learn to pull her punches. Echo doesn’t, either, but at least sparring with Echo makes Harper feel like she’s _learning_ something. And she wants to learn. She wants to get stronger.

 

 

     Monty wakes up from a nightmare and Harper isn’t there.

     It doesn’t matter, he tells himself, kicking free of the sheets. When he sits up his heart thunders, and he puts his head in his hands. He tries to slow his breathing, but it doesn’t feel like it’s helping. The fear still thrums through his veins. His eyes are burning.

     The walls of the room close in around him. Monty can’t stay here. He slides sideways out of the bed, his legs wobbly, hot and tired and sore, like all the running from his dream had crossed over into the real world.

     His clothes are in a pile on the floor, where he’d left them last night. Monty pulls them on one at a time. Pants, shirt, shoes. He’ll go and find somebody to talk to. Anybody. It doesn’t have to be Harper, even though the thought of her is… familiar. Safe. Her gentle hands on his shoulders, her hair in his face, her soft voice in his ear.

     He wants to find her. Wants her to talk him down from the nightmare which he can’t shake. The horror of it lingers inside Monty somewhere, mingling with the memories that are always there. People he’s lost. Mistakes he’s made. Things he’s done which he can’t forgive himself for.

     Harper’s the only one who can shake him out of it, but Monty wishes he could do it himself.

     It’s always worse when there’s nothing to do. Over the past year-and-a-half, everything has gradually settled down. Days fall into a pattern, and maintenance checks become routine. He could do them in his sleep. He almost does, some of the time.

     There’s a temperature control issue today, anyway, and Raven wants his help fixing it. It’s probably something she could handle herself, but Monty’s not about to argue. He likes having something to do. _Needs_ something to do.

     He straightens up and pushes his hair back, out of his face, squares his shoulders and squashes the nightmare down, deep down. Far enough that he can’t see their faces anymore.

 

    

     “This one?” Harper asks, dangling the screwdriver in front of Raven’s face.

     Raven shakes her head, ponytail bouncing. “Smaller.”

     “Okay.” Harper rolls onto her side, picks through the pile of screwdrivers until she finds a smaller one. She lies on her stomach again, reaching forwards over the edge of the floor to Raven, sprawled in the crawlspace underneath. “How about this?”

     “Yeah, that looks good.” Raven plucks the screwdriver free and slides forwards until only her legs are in Harper’s sight.

     “Is it working?”

     “Uh huh!”

     Harper gets her knees under her in case she needs to stand. “Do you need me to get the cable?”

     “Not yet. Wait a sec.”

     “Sure.”

     There’s silence, and Harper chafes against it. She hates waiting while the rest of them _do_ stuff. It makes her feel worse than useless. The truth, though, is that Harper’s area of expertise is woefully small. She’d been a child, and then a teenaged criminal, cocky and confident that her crimes would be expunged when she turned eighteen. On the ground she’d attached herself to anyone she admired; a cute boy, someone stronger, or smarter, or more brave.

     Even training as a guard in Arkadia hadn’t given her any real skills. After all, there wasn’t anyone to guard up here. And even if there _was_ , Echo or Bellamy would do a far better job of it.

     The only reason Harper is up here is because Monty loves her. And even that, she can’t-

     “Go get it!” Raven calls.

     Harper jumps. “What?”

     “The cable!”

     “Okay,” Harper says quickly, jumping to her feet. “Okay, I’m going.”

     She heads out of the room - an ex-Council member’s office - and  hurries down the corridor to where she’s left the cable coiled on the ground.

     Murphy passes her, pauses to ask, “Seen Nova?”

     “No,” Harper says. She bends to the cable, starts to hoist it into her arms. Holy crap, this thing is heavy. “You were meant to be keeping an eye on her.”

     “I was!” Murphy says. “She’s fast!”

     Harper grunts as she gets the cable up into her arms and starts walking with it. She can’t see the ground through the load she’s carrying, so she moves slowly, feeling ahead with her feet. “She’s fifteen months old, Murphy.”

     “Yeah,” he says, “but she’s fast. And sneaky.”

     “Right,” Harper says. “She’s _way_ faster than you. It’s not like you forgot to pay attention to her. _Again._ ”

     “Sarcasm isn’t helpful,” Murphy informs her. He stoops to the ground and stands up with a loop of cable that had been trailing behind Harper. “You forgot this.” He drapes it over her shoulders and turns to go.

     Harper calls after him, “Thanks,” but he doesn’t acknowledge it.

     She jogs the length of the corridor with the weight of the cable heavy on her shoulders, the muscles of her biceps burning and her breath coming in short, steady pants. Raven is completely invisible by the time Harper gets back to the crawlspace entrance in the office.

     She pokes her head down under the floor. “Raven?”

     “This way!” Raven calls back, her voice echoing strangely.

     Harper lowers the cable into the hole carefully, feeding it through her hands bit-by-bit, pushing it until she feels a tug on the other end.

     “Got it?” she asks.

     “Yeah!”

     And again there’s nothing for Harper to do but wait.

     It’s been fifteen minutes and she’s just getting bored when Bellamy sticks his head in. “Have you got Nova?”

     “No,” Harper says. She gets to her feet. “Murphy was looking for her.”

     “I know,” Bellamy says, his face tense. “He can’t find her. No one can find her.”

     “Where-”

     “The corridor,” he answers immediately. “Murphy swears that’s where she was. But I haven’t seen her for hours.”

     His eyes are very dark. Harper swallows, reaches up to tug at the end of her braid. “You think Murphy… did something? Hurt her?”

     “I don’t know,” Bellamy says. “I just want to find her. Does Raven need you, or can you help look?”

     “I’ll help.”

     Bellamy can’t manage a smile as he says, “Thanks. Check all the rooms off this corridor, would you? I’ve had a look in, but maybe check under all the beds and chairs and stuff. You know how she likes hiding.”

     “Yeah,” Harper says. “I’ll look. We’ll find her, Bellamy.”

     He points towards the gaping hole in the floor. “Raven’s under there?”

     “You want me to tell her? Get her out to help look?”

     “No,” Bellamy says, quickly, guiltily. “No, don’t. Not yet. Let’s just… not say anything yet. Okay?”

     Harper frowns, because that doesn’t seem right. “Are you sure?”

     “Yes.”

     There’s a fierceness in his voice, the set of his shoulders. It’s an order, Harper thinks, and she wonders again when Bellamy became the one in charge of them all.

     “Okay,” she says. “I’ll check the rooms.”

 

 

     The gloom under the floor paints shadows around Raven’s eyes and beneath her cheekbones. Her teeth flash white in the darkness when she grimaces at the readouts.

     “It’s still drawing way too much power,” Monty says. She can see that for herself, he knows, but he likes talking things over. Working it out verbally.

     “I’m more worried about the heat,” she says. “That storage room is right next to the hydro farm. ”

     “It’ll cook the algae,” Monty agrees.

     “Okay, what about sealing the room? Venting it periodically to keep the temperature down?”

     Monty reaches up to scratch at his neck. “It doesn’t solve the power problem.”

     “No,” Raven says, “but it gives us more time to work on it.”

     “Okay,” Monty says. He stretches out for the cable. “Give me that and I’ll run it through.”

     Raven looks at him sharply. “I can do it.”

     “It’s fine. I’ve left the entrance near the oxygenator open. I can climb out there.”

     “I can crawl just as well as you,” she says, jutting her chin forwards.

     “Raven.”

     “What?” she snaps, like _he’s_ the one being stupid.

     “Just let me take it?”

     Raven presses her lips together and shakes her head. “I can handle it, Monty, okay? Go and seal up Storage Five. Do something _useful_.”

     Monty sighs, and gives up. “I’ll start insulating the walls when I’ve sealed the room,” he says. 

     “Good idea. I’ll come and help you when I’m done attaching this,” she says, and wriggles off past him, squeezing through the crawlspace with the cable looped over her shoulders. She’s fast, even with the leg brace, but Monty can see the strain on her face.

     He doesn’t comment. She wouldn’t want him to.

 

 

     There are stacks of empty buckets, a mop that Harper has never seen anyone use, a pile of disembowelled cushions and the ripped frame of an old loveseat in the storage room. The walls are tight around her - she could probably touch both at once if she stretched out her arms. Ahead of her, the room extends for several paces. She doesn’t see a baby.

     Still, this room had been one of the only ones with an open door. Nova might be getting better at walking and talking, but Harper’s pretty sure that the toddler can’t work door panels yet. She takes a step further into the room.

     “Nova? Baby girl?”

     There’s no babbling, but Harper hears something at the back of the room make a soft _clang_ sound; metal on metal. She smiles to herself, squeezing past the buckets to get closer. There are four low shelves across the middle of the room, wall-to-wall, holding ancient ration packs and oxygen canisters and the broken helmet off a spacesuit. Harper gets down on her hands and knees to crawl beneath the shelves, rounds the corner of the loveseat and finds Nova behind it.

     The baby is crouching in front of a bucket, and she turns to look at Harper over her shoulder and beams.

     “Hi there,” Harper says, shuffling closer. “What are you doing?”

     Nova reaches into the bucket, her little hand flapping around. So Harper looks inside the bucket, too, and pulls out a misshapen metal ball. She holds it out.

     “Dah?” Nova says, opening and closing her hand like a crab, reaching for the ball. “Uh, uh.”

     “You want this?” Harper hands it over, smiling, loving the interaction. Loving the seriousness on Nova’s face, lips pushed into a pout, as she takes the ball from Harper and drops it, _clang_ , back into the bucket.

     Harper moves even nearer, putting one hand up to rub Nova’s skinny back. She brushes her lips across Nova’s head, content to watch, as Nova reaches over the rim of the bucket again to fish for the ball. It’s precious. It’s adorable. And it’s a break, just for a few minutes, from everything else. All the anxiety and anger. Just love.

     Smiling, Harper folds her legs beneath her, hunching over the little girl and squashed into the space behind the red loveseat.

 

 

     Monty gives the storage room a cursory glance as he reaches in for the door. The room is full of old buckets and cushions, and even a battered old couch. The door is old, too, old-fashioned - he has to actually pull it shut before he locks the panel, which is crazy. There’s a pneumatic sort of hiss as the door comes towards him, and he tugs it fast, already feeling the heat pumping out of the vents in there.

     He seals the door the old-fashioned way, twisting the locking handle until it clunks shut, and then he goes for the panel by the wall.

 

 

     Harper jerks her head up at the low bang of the door smashing into the wall. And she thinks, _wind_ , but that’s stupid, there’s no wind, they’re in space, and no reason for the door to close-

 

  

     The walkie on his belt crackles and Monty grabs at it, turning away from the storage door.

     “ _Monty_.”

    “Raven?” he asks, because the quality is so bad that he can’t tell if it’s her voice.

     “ _I need you at the oxygenator after all._ ”

     “Okay,” he says. “On my way.”

 

 

     They’re locked in. Actually locked in. Harper bangs on the door with her fists, and she puts her face up against it and yells, but there’s no one out there.

     The air is getting hot.

 

 

     There’s still some scar tissue left on Monty’s hands. His fingers are stiffer than they were before, clumsier and slower, but they still work. He’s grateful they still work. He’s _lucky_ they still work.

     Callouses have formed on the tips of his fingers from all the work he’s been doing. It makes it even harder; his hands aren’t as sensitive as they were, and he can’t always feel what he’s working with. He has to lean in and squint, instead, and that’s exhausting, and the dim light gives him a headache.

     Raven is full of ideas. There’s always something to do, or something to create. Upgrading the ancient technology of the oxygen generator is just her newest project. In a few weeks, she’ll have another one to work on.

     Monty doesn’t mind, though. Keeping busy is good for him. It makes his mind stop whirling.

     Usually. Today he’s having trouble keeping the thoughts out of his head. He can’t focus on what he’s supposed to be doing, and Raven’s noticed.

     Her shoulder bumps against his. “Watch it,” she says, reaching down to pull his fingers away from where they’re busy trying to claw the insulation from the wrong wire.

     “Sorry.”

     “Are you okay?” she asks. “You’re quiet.” A pause, and then Raven amends, “More quiet than usual.”

     Monty shrugs. “I’m just tired.”

     “I’ve got it from here, if you want to go rest. Or eat, or whatever.”

     He thinks about going to find Harper. Maybe if he can talk to her - tell her about his nightmare - but that seems stupid. Childish. Monty needs to know that he can handle this stuff alone. Because if he can’t-

     Decisively, he shakes his head. “No, I’m fine. Let’s get it finished.”

 

 

     Harper peels off Nova’s clothes first, and then her own, one layer at a time, until Nova is in a diaper and Harper is in her underwear. It doesn’t help. The heat seems to have reached down her throat, into her chest, radiating out from beneath her skin.

     Nova is crying, lying on the old couch with Harper perched on the arm beside her.

     “I know, baby,” Harper says. “It’s going to be okay.”

     She can’t breathe. The air is so hot that it turns thick in her lungs. Nova pants between sobs, her little tongue poking out of her mouth with the effort.

     Someone’s got to find them soon, Harper thinks. If they can just wait long enough…

     Her heart pounds in her chest. The heat makes her head heavy. She slides down off the arm of the couch to sit beside Nova, but she can’t bring herself to touch the baby girl. Not when the child’s skin feels as hot as a furnace.

     But the others will be looking for her. And they’ll be looking for Nova.

     Harper lets her heavy head drop back against the couch and closes her eyes.

 

 

     Raven's walkie crackles. She jabs at the button with a finger and says, “What?”

     Just more crackling. Raven glances at Monty, and he looks back at her and shrugs.

     “Piece of shit,” Raven tells the walkie. She holds down the button again. “Hey, whoever that is, I can’t hear you.”

     It goes silent.

     “I’ve done as much as I can with them,” Monty says.

     “Yeah,” Raven agrees, “it’s not your fault they’re shit. But we need something else to use.” She frowns, tapping a finger against her chin. “I’ll think about it.”

     Monty’s walkie hisses, and he reaches down to unhook it from his belt. He waits. No one speaks. Monty hits the button. “Could you repeat that?”

     He brings it close to his ear, listens for words through the fuzz of static. And he catches her name.

     “ _…Harper and…help…store…”_

     It’s enough. God, it’s more than enough, because Monty feels the knowledge blaze through him like lightning. He’d shut her in there. Oh, god, he’d shut her in the storage room. He’d sealed her in, and that _heat_ …

     Monty takes off running.

     Raven shouts from behind him, “What? What is it?”

     He can’t find the words to explain, and it doesn’t matter anyway, because his legs won’t stop moving, carrying him away from Raven. Racing him towards Harper.

     He thinks he might die if he loses her, too.

 

 

     Harper opens her eyes when they open the door. Her head is pounding, and her eyes are blurry, but she still tries to stand up. Tries to walk to them.

     She hisses when her foot touches the hot metal, crumples against it and screams when it burns her.

     Arms come around her, bands of heat, and Harper twists but they hold too tight. Someone lifts her up and carries her out of the room.

     A wave of fresh air rolls over her and she gulps it in, and she gasps, “Nova, Nova,” and she hopes they understand.

 

 

     Their eyes are open, but Harper is mumbling incoherently, and Nova is limp. Monty bites down on his lip, hard.

     Murphy says, “Shit, shit, shit,” and he’s cradling Nova against him and her arms are just dangling.

     “Harper,” Monty whispers. Her head is against Bellamy’s shoulder and her skin is flushed bright red. He can feel the heat coming off her.

     “What do we do?” Murphy asks. “Shit. Shit.”

     Bellamy hoists Harper higher in his arms, gives Monty a sharp look. “Get Echo,” he says. “Find someone to bring cold water; buckets, cloths, something.” He jerks his head at Murphy, says, “Hydro farm.”

     Monty turns and runs.

 

 

     Harper snaps her eyes open when the water laps at her face. She’s been drifting; dreaming, but she comes aware sharp and fast and sudden. There are hands on her shoulders and nothing but water beneath her feet. She struggles against the hands and kicks out below.

     “Hey, take it easy,” Murphy says.

     It’s his face above her. His hands on her shoulders. The water around Harper is lukewarm, and Bellamy is in it beside her, hanging on to the edge and cradling Nova in his free arm.

     Nova’s eyes are open, Harper sees, and she sags with relief. Murphy holds her up, keeping her face out of the water.

     There’s still a sick pounding in Harper’s head. She watches Bellamy lift Nova out of the water, and climb out himself.

     Harper retches when Murphy and Bellamy heave her out of the algae pool. Nothing comes up, but her head throbs and throbs with the motion, and she groans, closing her eyes.

     The air is cool on her wet skin. Cooler still when they carry her out of the algae farm and into the corridor. When she’s sitting on a towel out there, water droplets rolling down the white brands of the burns on her knees, Monty crouches beside her.

     The colour has leeched out of his cheeks. “Here,” he says, holding up a bottle of water. “Drink it.”

     Harper feels sicker than ever when she swallows it, but she tries. She sees them drizzling water down Nova’s throat, too, and draping cold cloths over her body. Monty has some for Harper, too, soaked in cold water. He puts them on her head, her chest, her wrists.

     “I’m going to puke,” Harper says thickly, when Monty tries to force more water into her mouth.

     He shakes his head. “You won’t. Come on, drink a little more.”

     “I can’t,” she says. “I can’t.”

     He pours it over her head, instead, and Harper closes her eyes.

 

 

     They must have only been in there for ten minutes, Monty thinks, or maybe fifteen, but the temperature had easily climbed to over 40C. And it’s his fault. Entirely his fault. One hundred percent.

     Once they get them to Med, it’s easier to keep them cool. Monty knocks down the temperature for the room and Emori covers Harper and Nova in wet sheets, changing them out every so often.

     Harper manages to drink. Monty sits by her bed, holding her hand under the damp sheet, keeping the bottle at her lips while she swallows. There’s no way to give her sugars, or electrolytes - not when all they eat is algae. It doesn’t matter. The water goes down, and her temperature stays down, and that’s fine.

     Nova doesn’t want to drink, not plain water, but she takes the breast when Raven offers. Bellamy comes in to stand over them, watching. He and Raven argue in hushed, angry voices. Bellamy keeps too much to himself. Raven needs to _know_ if her baby is missing.

     Monty stops listening to them after a while. And he feels just as guilty about harming the baby, he _does_ , but it’s Harper who weighs most heavily on his mind.

     He dozes when she does, still clasping her hand, with his forehead resting on the gurney.  

 

_October_

     It takes four weeks for the raised red lines of the burns on Harper’s legs to flatten down and fade into half-healed, shiny skin.

     She still catches Monty looking at them one morning. He rests his head on her stomach, reaching one hand out to trace the edges of the mark above her knee.

     “Do they still hurt?”

     “No,” Harper says. It’s not quite true. They still sting, but she’s had enough of Monty being so withdrawn. He’s always quiet, but this is different. He’s subdued. Guilty. Ashamed.

     “I’m sorry.”

     He’s apologetic too, Harper thinks, and she sighs. “It wasn’t your fault.”

     “I should have checked the room.”

     “We were hiding behind the couch,” Harper says, automatically, and then she pauses. “I don’t want to have this conversation again, Monty.”

     “I’m sorry.”

     “Don’t be.”

     He doesn’t turn to look at her, but he pulls his fingers away from the scar. Rests his hand on her thigh instead.

     There’s something wrong. Harper watches him; the thick dark hair on the back of his head, the stiffness in his shoulders and the hesitance in his fingers.

     “Monty,” she says. She sits up, tipping him off, and he has to sit up, too. He still won’t face her. Harper stretches out a hand and touches his shoulder. Pulls at it, until he turns around. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

     He shakes his head. “Everything. I can’t do this.”

     Anxiety coils in Harper’s gut as she remembers Jasper. Remembers the way she’d felt, when she’d decided that maybe it would be easier to just lie down and give up. “I-”

     “Am I the reason you’re alive?”

     “What?”

     Monty looks up at her, finally meeting her eyes. “Am I?”

     “Yes,” Harper says, truthfully. “You saved my life in Mount Weather.”

     “But - later. With Jasper. Would you… did you stay alive for me? Because of me?”

     “No.”

     He frowns. “Are you sure?”

     “Yes,” Harper says. “I’m sure, okay? I didn’t want to stop fighting. Not after everything we’d survived. I wasn’t ready.” She reaches out for Monty’s hand, linking their fingers together. “I’m still not ready.”

     “I can’t handle what’s happened,” Monty says. “Any of it. And I need to learn how.”

     “I can help you-”

     “No! You can’t. That’s the problem,” Monty tells her. His fingers squeeze tight. “Every time I feel… bad, I go looking for you. And you make me feel better.”

     Harper doesn’t understand. “What’s wrong with that?”

     “I can’t keep using you as an emotional crutch. We’re going to get back to the ground, and everything is going to get ten times worse,” Monty says. “And if I freak out every time you aren’t with me, then what good am I going to be? To anyone?”

     “I’m always going to be with you,” Harper says. She pulls him closer, buries her face in his shoulder. “Monty, it’s okay to need help.”

     “Not all the time,” he says. “Not for me. It isn’t, Harper. I never confront any of this. I never think about it. I never _talk_ about it, I just go to you and expect you to make it all better.”

     She sighs again, because she’s starting to see where this is going. And she wishes it wouldn’t. “You want to be alone.”

     “Just sometimes. Just to learn how to be alone.”

     “It’s easy,” Harper says, “being alone. It’s being together that’s hard.”

     “I need to be alone before we can be together.”

     Her eyes are hot. When she blinks against Monty’s shirt, a tear escapes, soaking into the fabric. She feels the stuttering rhythm of his breathing and thinks that he might be crying, too.

     Harper doesn’t let go of his hand. “Okay,” she says. “Okay. It’ll be okay. I love you.” She hopes it’s the right kind of love. She hopes it’s enough.

     “I love you,” Monty murmurs. He nods against her, presses his lips to her temple.

     “We don’t have to be together right now,” Harper tells him. “But we will be. We can be. Whenever you’re ready.” She thinks about that, and then she amends it, to give herself the time that she needs as well. “Whenever _we’re_ ready.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not adamantly opposed to Monty/Harper by any means (they're adorbs and Monty is heroic and Harper is the shizz) but I am adamantly opposed to everyone just successfully staying in the same happy relationships for six years. That's unrealistic and it annoys me.  
> But I couldn't picture Murphy and Emori ever breaking up so it had to be these guys.


	5. The Bellamy Bit (2152)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags got changed around a little for this one. The first segment is slightly more mature - I'm not convinced it's smutty enough to warrant a total rating change for the fic, please let me know if you feel differently. If you don't want to read any of that, CTRL+F straight to May.

_April_

     Echo is so self-contained.

     Even when Bellamy’s got his fingers inside her and she’s sprawled on the sheets, her neck arched and her teeth biting down on her lip so hard it’s turned white. There’s no sound from her. She’s got her eyes closed and she won’t look at him afterwards, Bellamy knows. Sex, for Echo, is anything but intimate.

     He doesn’t mind. It makes it easier, just something casual that they haven’t talked about since that first conversation. Bellamy had been the one to bring it up, months ago. Echo had been the one to remind him how Nova had happened. He’d never thought about that - not on the Ark, where an accident was never an option. But Echo had said that there was _other stuff_ and this was how it had ended.

     It’s fine. It’s a distraction and a release, and Bellamy can’t deny that he enjoys it. But she never talks. Never.

     Echo leaves right after and this is the part he always hates. The part where he’s alone, and he’s too tired to read, or run, or shower, but not tired enough to sleep. Bellamy just drifts, and has weird, disconnected, half-awake thoughts.

     They’re always about Earth. About the people he’s loved and the people he’s lost. He’s sick of thinking about them. So he always ends up going back to Echo.

 

     Bellamy wakes up when a heavy weight is dropped on his stomach. And he groans, and opens his eyes, and Nova’s face is right there.

     “Shit, Raven!” he exclaims, yanking the blankets up to his chin. “I’m naked under here!”

     “Sorry,” Raven says. She doesn’t sound sorry. Not even slightly. “I gotta shower, and then I gotta sleep.” She waves her hands vaguely at Nova. “She’ll probably need to eat soon.”

     “Can you at least wait until I put some damn clothes on?”

     Raven says, “Nah,” and smirks at him. She blows a kiss at Nova before she leaves.

     Bellamy stares up at the toddler. She stares down at him. “Baba?”

     “Yes?”

     Nova grins, wiggling further up to sit on his chest. She puts her feet on his neck and Bellamy chokes and moves them off to one side.

     “Careful,” he says to her. “Careful with Baba.”

     She can’t master his name. She can’t master many names yet - not her own, either, although she’s had _Mama_ down pat since she was eleven months old. She’s a smart kid. A lot like Raven. Maybe a little too much, Bellamy thinks, smiling to himself.

     Nova pats his face. “Tie get up.”

     “Time to get up?”

     She nods, crawls sideways off him and reaches to pull away the covers. Bellamy grabs them back. “Um,” he says. “Sweetheart, wait a moment. Daddy has to get dressed.”

     He curses himself as soon as the word leaves his lips. It just comes so naturally, but Bellamy had been determined that he wouldn’t do this. He wouldn’t pressure Nova, or Raven, into accepting him as the father. Not while they were all stuck up here together. It feels wrong; it leaves a bad taste in his mouth, like he’s forcing himself into Raven’s life where he’s not wanted.

     They’ve never really talked about it, so he doesn’t exactly know where she stands, but he’s pretty sure that she wouldn’t want this. Bellamy wasn’t the one she loved - that was Finn - and she was probably even closer to Wick than him. She won’t want him to claim paternity. She might want to talk to Nova about Finn, when the toddler is older, and Bellamy can’t take that away from her. From either of them. He can’t.

     He rolls sideways with the blankets wrapped around his body, fetches one arm out through the fabric and hunts around by the side of the bed for his clothes. Bellamy uses the blanket like a tent while he pulls on his boxers. He’s pretty proud of the dextrous feat when he turns around, but Nova isn’t even watching him. She’s crawled under the second blanket that he’d left behind.

     Bellamy thinks about reaching in and fishing her out. But, it’s early, and he’s still a little tired, and there’s no harm in letting her mess around.

     He gets back on the bed, instead, and pulls the blanket over his head. In the semi-darkness underneath, he can just make out Nova’s little face.

     “What are you doing under here?” he asks her.

     He gets a quiet giggle in return, and then she crawls closer and kneels in the space between his head and shoulder. Her little hand tugs on his ear.

     “What are you doing, Nova?”

     “I oh no,” she says.

     Bellamy grins, wondering what she means. God, he can’t wait until she gets old enough to talk.

     “Want me to tell you a story?”

     There’s no reply. Just Nova’s cold fingers in his ear, and her foot digging into his armpit as she squirms around to sit on his shoulder.

     “It’s a story about a long time ago,” Bellamy says. “A story about the Ground, before there were people on it. A story about huge monsters with great big _teeth_.”

     Nova’s face appears above his. She leans down until their noses are almost touching, and she lifts her little arched eyebrows. She looks so suspicious, Bellamy almost laughs. He holds it back, though, and stares at her, and she stares at him and he gnashes his teeth at her suddenly, half-lunging forwards.

     Nova shrieks and falls back, and then she giggles, that little laugh that Bellamy loves so much.

     He’s completely infatuated. It’s embarrassing.

     So he curls the toddler into his chest and her fingers wander over his collarbones and down his shoulders and up into his nostrils while he tells her a story of dinosaurs and it’s fine. It’s better than fine. For a little while, it’s close to perfect.

 

     There’s so much that he wants to tell everyone he’s left behind.

     Bellamy knows that it’s impossible, but he can’t help from imagining conversations in his head. With his sister, his mother… Clarke. Miller. Even Kane, weird as that might be. He plans out the way he’d tell them the important stuff first; how they’d all survived up here, how amazing Raven has been, how useless he’s felt.

     Afterwards, maybe, he’d drop the Nova news on them. And that would be fun, too. The look on Octavia’s face.

     Mom, he thinks, would have been proud of him. She was always going on about what good care he took of Octavia. Even though he resented it at times - this extra responsibility that he’d never asked for.

     He could probably tell Octavia that he thinks Nova is his. She might even notice the little girl’s long-lashed dark, dark eyes, or the tiny soft dimple in Nova’s chin.

     The way in which he misses them has blunted, over time. The grief isn’t as sharp as it used to be. Neither is the longing.  It’s good, Bellamy thinks. It’s easier.  

_May_

     The intercom buzzes and Raven says, “ _Hey, Bell_.”

     He looks up from his book and over to the newly-installed panel on the wall, and then, sighing, Bellamy swings his legs off the edge of the couch and stands up. He’s only had about ten minutes to himself today.

     Raven is the only one who can make talking on the intercom sound as natural as real life. There’s always warmth and humour in her voice, no matter how distorted it gets through the electronics.

     Bellamy hits the button and says, “Yeah, go ahead.”

     “ _Need you in Monitoring._ ”

     “On my way,” he says. He sits back on the couch to slide his feet into his heavy boots and lace them tightly. Then, tugging his fingers through his too-long hair and with one last wistful glance at the book on the couch, Bellamy leaves his room and heads down the corridor.

     The lights are dimmed around the station, which means that it’s night, according to their clock up here. Raven and Monty had set it to automatic months ago - trying to conserve power in the dodgy lights. Ten hours on full strength, and then fourteen hours dimmed, and off in all the non-essential rooms. So far, it’s been working out. Less flickering. Less light issues.

     It was last _year_ that they’d done it, actually. Bellamy just can’t get used to thinking about things in terms of _years._ On the ground, it’d been hard to even think three days in the future. A week, or a month, had seemed impossible. Hell, he could be dead by then.

     But now that things on the Ring have settled down - now that he doesn’t feel like every breath could be his last, that the station could explode or the oxygen could shut down or whatever else - Bellamy’s life is stretching out way further than he’d ever imagined it before.

     He’d turned twenty-five at the end of last year. Twenty-five. He’d never thought, once he landed on the ground, that he’d make it this far. He’d been pretty convinced he wouldn’t even see this side of twenty-three.

     Octavia must be eighteen by now. Nearly nineteen. The thought rattles around in Bellamy’s skull. Nineteen. Jesus. It’s so young, but also, so old. For the little girl he watched be born. Watched grow up, curious and adventurous and bright.

     He misses her like crazy.

     Raven is pacing when Bellamy gets into Monitoring. She’s got Nova balanced on her hip and she’s walking back and forth, bouncing the toddler a little, like they used to when she was tiny and she wouldn’t sleep.

     “Hey,” Raven says, when she sees him. There’s half a smile on her face but her eyes are dark-ringed and exhausted.

     “I thought someone was supposed to be in bed,” Bellamy says, taking a step towards her and leaning down. Raven obligingly stops moving so that he can cup his hand around Nova’s cheek, brushing the fierce black curls back from her face.

     “Someone _is_ supposed to be in bed,” Raven says, hoisting Nova higher. “Someone doesn’t feel like sleeping.”

     “You want me to take her?”

     “Ugh, please.”

     Bellamy gets his hands under Nova’s armpits, tugs her up into his chest. “Aren’t you tired, monkey?”

     She stares back at him with wide, dark eyes, a very solemn expression for such a little girl.

     “Not talking?” he asks.

     Nova shakes her head, hides her face against his shoulder.

     “Well, okay then,” Bellamy says. He glances back at Raven. “What did you want me to look at?”

     Raven’s mouth twists to the side. “It’s not _look at_ ,” she says. “It’s _hear_.”

     “Hear what?”

     She motions towards the console with her head. “Come on.”

     He follows her as she limps over there; that steady, rolling gait. She slumps down in a seat and Bellamy stands over her, dropping one hand to rest on the back of Raven’s chair.

     Nova kicks out at him, little bare feet drumming into his back and his stomach. Bellamy tenses his muscles so that she won’t do any damage. She’s lifted her little head from his shoulder, and he looks down at her. “What?”

     “Mama.”

     Raven sighs, but she’s already holding her arms up to receive. Bellamy lowers Nova gently, and she curls up in Raven’s lap, curly head resting on Raven’s chest and thumb firmly in her mouth.

     “We’re having a really clingy day,” Raven says. “Here, Bell, see what you can make of this.” She reaches around Nova to the buttons on the console, hits one and sits back.

     It’s just static. That’s all Bellamy hears. A steady hiss, punctuated by the occasional crackle or pop. But static.

     “What’s it supposed to be?” he asks Raven.

     “A transmission.”

     “What?”

     “A transmission from _Earth_ , Bell.”

     Bellamy stares at her. She smiles again, that small, tired smile. He gapes. “You’re serious?”

     “One hundred percent. I don’t know who’s transmitting, and I don’t know where from, but someone down there is trying to make contact.”

     “ _Octavia_ ,” Bellamy breathes.

     Nova waves an imperious, slightly soggy hand at him. “’Ere,” she commands. Summoning him.

     Absently, Bellamy moves closer to her, putting a hand on her head and twirling the dark curls around his fingers.

     “I’ve been trying to boost the signal,” Raven says, “but this is as good as I can get it right now.”

     “Is the problem on our end, or theirs?”

     “Ours. Definitely ours. I’ll work on it, but I wanted to see if you could make anything out.”

     Bellamy closes his eyes and _listens_. He strains with every fibre of his being towards the sound; he waits for the hiss and the crackle to become words, or sobs. His sister. Something his sister might say.

     Faintly, he thinks he hears, _Bellamy._

     There’s nothing. He opens his eyes and sighs. “Just static.”

     “Yeah, me too,” Raven says. “I’ll keep working on it. Nova’s gotten into your pocket, by the way.”

     No wonder the toddler had asked him to move closer. Bellamy looks down fast, just in time to catch the little hand as it emerges with a spoon. “Nova,” he says, “that’s not yours.”

     She clings onto it tightly. “Me, me!”

     “ _Not_ yours. No, Nova.”

     “No, no, no, Nova!” the baby chants.

     Raven laughs, detaching the soggy fingers. “That’s exactly right, funny girl.” She hands the spoon back to Bellamy. “Why do you have a spoon in your pocket?”

     “Forgot it,” he says.

     “How do you put a spoon in your pocket and forget about it?”

     “I don’t know, Raven, I’m tired.”

     “No bed,” Nova says quickly. “Baba. No bed.”

     “I said _I’m_ tired,” Bellamy tells her, brushing his finger around the curve of her ear. Nova squirms, and bats him away, pressing her ear down into her shoulder.

     “Baba _no_.”

     “I need some sleep, too,” Raven admits. “I’ll get back here after a few hours. I can probably clean the signal up - there’s loads of tricks I haven’t tried yet.”

      “Don’t rush back,” Bellamy tells her.

     “Yeah, yeah.”

     “I mean it, Raven. You need enough sleep. This - whoever this is - they can wait.”

     “I know,” she says. She stands up, hefting Nova with her, and says, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

     Bellamy drops his arm over her shoulders for a half-hug, ducks his head to give Nova a kiss on the cheek, even as she squirms away from him. She flings her arms around Raven’s neck and hangs on as tight as a limpet.

     “You’re right,” Bellamy says, half-laughing. “It is a clingy day.”

     “Tell me about it,” Raven grunts, trying to shift Nova into an easier position. “I tried to leave her outside the bathroom today? She screamed like crazy. You’d think she’d want some space, living in this sardine can.” Raven snorts. “God knows I do.”

     Bellamy smiles, sympathetically. “Not long now,” he says.

     “Yeah, only another _three years_.” Raven rolls her eyes.

     “Hey. It’s two years, ten months.” He grins at her; at both of them. “We’re nearly home.”

 

     On the way back to his room, Bellamy stops at the window.

     There’s no real reason to do it; he’s exhausted, and all he really needs is sleep. But he’s thinking about Octavia and so his feet take him right to that window and then he stands. And stares.

     The angry red clouds covering the Earth have faded and dissipated fast over the past few months. Now the sphere is just a dusty brown colour. Every so often, when they drift over the right part of the planet, Bellamy thinks he can see water. Just a hint of water. A flash of blue.

     No green, yet, but he hopes it’ll come soon. Once the dust finally clears, he’ll be able to see the outlines of the continents again. Seas, and land, and then he can pick North America out of the mass. He’ll know where to look.

     It makes him feel closer to her, which is stupid. She doesn’t even know if he’s alive. Hell, he doesn’t even know if _she’s_ alive.

     But the transmission means that there’s someone down there. And if one person’s alive, then there’s a chance for the rest of them. There’s a chance. There’s hope.

     “I thought you’d stopped doing this.”

     It’s Echo’s voice. Bellamy doesn’t turn to look at her, but he holds out a hand and flicks his fingers. Beckoning her closer. An invitation, if she wants it.

     “It’s looking a little better,” he says.

     Echo hums. “Maybe.”

     “I think it’ll be okay,” Bellamy says. “When we get down there. I think we’ll work things out.”

     He hears Echo step closer to him. Feels her breath on the back of his neck. “Maybe,” she says again.

     He reaches behind him, searching for her; for that human connection. “Maybe?” he says. His fingers brush her shoulder and then she’s gone. Bellamy lets his arm drop limply back to his side. He doesn’t listen to her footsteps as they recede down the corridor, getting faster and lighter as she breaks into a run.

     When he finally turns around, the corridor is empty, and Bellamy is alone.

 

     “I dreamt about this last night,” Murphy says during breakfast.

     Bellamy lowers his bowl to look at the other man. “What? Food?”

     “I think we’ve all dreamt about food,” Raven mutters.

     “No,” Murphy says, “algae. On bread. Isn’t that disgusting?”

     Harper grins. “Like jelly.”

     “This shit is poisoning my mind,” Murphy says, gesturing to his own bowl.

     Bellamy doesn’t even remember the last time he had bread. On the Ark, he assumes. Years ago.

     Raven stands up, sending her empty bowl skidding down the tabletop to Harper. “Okay,” she says. “I’m gonna get to work.”

     Emori bounces Nova on her lap, making the toddler giggle. “Raven, you want me to keep this sweet girl?”

     “Uh, yep,” Raven says. “Keep her as _long_ as you like.”

     Murphy stacks his bowl in Emori’s and passes them to Harper, too. He leans across Emori to stick his tongue out at the child. Nova opens her eyes wide, and then scrunches up her whole face in a beaming smile, showing all her teeth, wrinkling her little nose.

     “Can you start my algae shift?” Harper says to Echo.

     “How long will you be?”

     Harper considers the pile of bowls. “Not long. Ten minutes?”

     Echo nods in acquiescence. Monty is already up and out of his chair, heading out of the room without a word. He’s been quiet lately. A little more isolated than usual.

     The rest of them are all sorting things out - talking together, joking and laughing - they’re fine. They don’t need Bellamy’s help. He doesn’t have to stick around like an anxious old man. He can go after Monty instead.

     Monty has stopped, halfway down the corridor. “How did I know you’d be following me?” he asks, smiling. It’s small, but it’s a real smile. That’s a good sign.

     “I just wanted to check in,” Bellamy says, trying to sound hearty and older-brotherly. He claps a hand on Monty’s shoulder. 

     “Thanks, Dad,” Monty says. “I’m actually fine.”

     “Okay, but if there’s anything you need-”

     “Yeah,” Monty says. “I’ll ask.” His lips curve up and he ducks his head, amused, and returns Bellamy’s shoulder pat as he walks away.

     So maybe Bellamy’s overdoing it a little on the team leader thing. Clarke would probably give him so much shit for it if she was here. He can almost hear her voice saying, _Don’t you trust them yet, Bellamy? It’s been two years._

     And then he’d say something like, _I know, Clarke, but I just want to be sure. I need to know they’re safe._

     She’d probably roll her eyes at him, or something, and he can remember the blue of her eyes, and the way they shone in the sunlight. Then she’d say, _They’re fine,_ and it would be true. It is true - they’re all fine, Bellamy knows they’re fine, he does.

     Besides, he’s the only one standing alone in the corridor having an imaginary conversation with Clarke. Bellamy rolls his own eyes at himself, straightens his spine and goes to see how Raven is doing. Just in case she needs him for anything.

    

     Raven says, “Can you please stop hovering? It’s been two hours. I hate you breathing down my neck like this.”

     “I’m nowhere near your neck!” Bellamy protests.

     “Yeah, but I can feel you staring at me. Come on. It’s not making me work faster.”

     Bellamy takes a couple of steps further away from the console. “You’ll get it working soon, and then I’m going to want to hear the transmission.”

     Raven spins her chair around to face him, one leg tucked up on the seat, her arms resting on her knee. “Bell, you’re the first person I’ll call when I get it working. Okay? I’ll buzz you straight over here, and you can charge down the corridors and knock over anyone who dares to get in your way. Right?”

     “I don’t _charge_ down the corridors.”

     “Whatever. Don’t you have something else to do?”

     He doesn’t, not really. “I suppose so.”

     “Weren’t you trying to read a book?”

     “When I’ve got a moment of peace,” Bellamy says.

     “I think you’ve got more moments of peace than you know what to do with.”

     Bellamy shrugs. “Yeah, maybe.”

     “Go and read your stupid book. I’m not going to finish this today anyway. I know I’m awesome, but I’m not a miracle worker, Bellamy, come on.”

     Her eyes are sharp and her mouth is set in a fierce line. Bellamy smiles at it - at Raven, who’s still the same person, even after two years and one child and countless injuries.

     “You’re right,” he says, stretching his arms over his head. “Just make sure you call me when-”

     “Oh my god! Go!”

     Bellamy’s lips twitch and he swallows his laugh as he leaves.

 

     He can’t focus on his book. Not for more than a few minutes at a time, anyway. He puts it down after one hour and only three chapters. There’s an algae shift with his name written on it, so Bellamy takes that, and it eats up another hour-and-a-half, and he takes a thirty minute shower afterwards. Raven still hasn’t called for him.

     Checking up on Emori and Nova isn’t distracting, either. Nova is perfectly happy with Emori’s games. She giggles when Emori flies her through the air, and squirms away when Bellamy tries to hold her. He can’t focus on her, either, and he and Emori have nothing to say to one another. After a while he gives up on that, too, and goes to watch Echo and Harper sparring instead.

     There’s a restlessness pervading Bellamy’s every thought and feeling. Everything he tries to do today feels stale and claustrophobic. There’s an itching in his chest and a feeling in his legs like he wants to take off running. It’s the transmission - he knows that it is, because he can feel the crackling in the back of his head, like static. He’s spent so long forcing himself to believe that Octavia is alive, because the opposite is too horrible to comprehend.

     He’d thought she was dead once before. That had been long enough for him to know that life wasn’t worth living without his sister. Not in any way.

     But if it’s not her making the transmission-

     Harper chokes out, “Okay, get off,” and rolls away from Echo.

     “You put yourself in that position,” Echo says. “Stop curling your legs.”

     “I have to bend them if I want any strength behind a kick.”

     “Not both at once. _Never_ beneath your body.” Echo offers Harper a hand, pulling the younger girl to her feet.

     “Echo,” Bellamy says, and she turns to look at him, eyebrows raised and mouth fierce.

     “Do you want a turn?”

     “Yes, actually.”

     Echo stares up at him. She meets his eyes full-on and there’s a long, long moment before she blinks, and nods, and says, “Very well.”

     Harper limps out of the way, grinning at Bellamy. “Kick her ass.”

     “He can try,” Echo retorts, and there’s no sign of it in her face but Bellamy thinks he hears a playfulness to her words.

     They’re all changing up here.

     Bellamy shucks his shirt, dropping it to the side of the mats. He ducks down to unlace his boots, too, and toss them out of the way.

     “Weapons?” Echo asks, offering him one of the PVC pipes.

     “No.”

     She rolls her eyes. “Fine.”

     Without weapons, Bellamy gains the advantage. He’s stronger, a little taller, and broader than Echo. She’s quicker than him - she weaves around him like a snake - but they’re still on even footing like this. Bellamy never really took to swords, anyway. Grounder weapons aren’t his thing. Give him a gun and he’s good.

     Echo swings out first with her left fist, and he drops back to avoid her. She doesn’t let up; she keeps coming at him, swinging left and right, lashing out with a kick that he’s unprepared for. It hits the tendons at the back of his knee and his leg buckles. Bellamy’s thigh burns. His breath comes fast and thoughts of Earth and transmissions slide out of his head to make room for the roaring adrenaline, trying to anticipate every strike even as they come quicker and quicker.

     It’s so easy to forget that they’re only training. Bellamy’s body certainly doesn’t know that. His thundering heart doesn’t know that he’s safe. The wave of anger that swells up in response to Echo’s first hit is so easy to get lost in.

     He lashes out at the side of Echo’s face, open-handed to lessen the force. Her head still snaps around, the long, heavy end of her braid whipping across Bellamy’s nose. He winces and steps back, and Echo turns and pounces on him.

     She’s that fast. Bellamy goes over backwards, his hands on her shoulders, struggling to keep her at arm’s length. Echo’s skin is slick with sweat, warm and smooth under his palms, and he can’t push her back far enough. She gets one arm around the back of his neck, elbow locking into place, and her forearm comes down towards his throat.

     Bellamy pulls one hand off her shoulder and angles in for a punch along the side of her ribs. It’s not full-force, but it’s hard enough to make Echo tense up.

     “Ow. _Joka_ ,” she swears, her eyes blazing when she looks at him. And her knee comes up and digs into Bellamy’s gut and he wraps one hand in her hair and _yanks-_

     The intercom says, “ _Bellamy, get over here_ now.”

     They both freeze, because, like always, Raven’s voice on the intercom is startlingly clear and full of emotion. It’s an emotion that Bellamy doesn’t recognise, but it’s enough to have him disentangling himself from Echo instantly, kicking her away harder than he probably needs to.

     Harper’s jumped to her feet, eyes wide and hands on her hips. “What is it?”

     “The transmission,” Bellamy says, because that’s the only thing it can be. He spares a second - _less_ \- to look at Echo. “You okay?”

     She’s panting. “Fine. Go.”

     Bellamy _runs._

 

     All the blood seems to have leeched out of Raven’s face. Her eyes are huge and dark and full of a kind of horror that Bellamy doesn’t understand.

     He skids to a stop in front of her and says, “Not Octavia. _Please._ ”

     “It’s not her,” Raven says vacantly. She puts a hand up over her mouth, swallows hard. “Listen.”

     She reaches out a hand and turns a dial and the whistling, hissing sound through the room gets louder, until Bellamy starts to make out individual words.

     “… _don’t even know if you can hear me but…_ ”

     The sound fades out. Raven is crying. Silently, but there are real tears rolling down her cheeks. Bellamy shakes his head.

     “I don’t understand. Who is it?” There’s an awful sick feeling in his chest.

     Raven says, “Wait,” in a soft, subdued voice.

     Bellamy shifts his weight from foot-to-foot uneasily, waiting for the static to resolve back into words, and he plays through what he’s already heard in his head, over and over again. The sound quality is awful but he thinks about the words, the intonation, the rhythm to the speech.

     _…don’t even know if you can hear me but…_

     He hardly has attention to spare when the others come trickling into the room, drawn by the urgency of Raven’s call on the intercom. Bellamy notices them walk in, the curiosity and fear and confusion on their faces, but he’s still replaying that fragment of message.

     … _don’t even know if you can hear me but…_

     Not his sister’s voice, but one he knows almost as well. He thinks he can see her saying it. Her mouth moving with the words. The expression on her face as she talks.

     “No,” Bellamy says.

     Raven meets his eyes and she opens her mouth but the transmission gets louder again.

     “ _...it’s stupid. I’ll call tomorrow, same time. If you’re up there - Bellamy, if you’re alive…”_

     Before she says his name, Bellamy knows, but he doesn’t break down until he hears it. And then he drops to his knees and curls his hands into fists and presses them against his forehead.

     “Oh god,” he says. “Oh god, oh god.” The full horror of what’s happened - of what _he’s done_ \- washes through him and he almost gags. He thinks he might be sick. He left her. He left her alone. _Alone._

     Someone says, “Bellamy,” but he doesn’t move. He clenches his jaw so tightly that something pops and cracks under his ear.

     There’s a hand on his shoulder. Fingers digging into his neck, hard and painful. Raven. Under the sharp, bruising strength of her grip, Bellamy pulls himself together.

     He looks up. They’re all standing there, the others, and Harper is pale and Monty’s eyes are wet and Murphy looks as sick as Bellamy feels.

     Echo says, “Clarke’s alive.”

     Bellamy can’t stand up. Not yet. He looks at Raven, instead, and she’s still got her hand on his shoulder. She nods, once. It helps. Bellamy reaches sideways and wraps one hand around her lower leg, fingers splayed across her calf. That helps, too. He’s not alone.

     Clarke is alone.

     “I left her,” he says, his voice hoarse and hollow. “I left her there.”

     None of them can find anything else to say.

 

     Raven doesn’t let go of Bellamy’s hand. Not while they walk down the corridor, and not at the door to her room.

     She doesn’t say anything. Just tilts her head up at him, dark eyes and downturned lips. Nova’s head is on her shoulder, one hand clutching tight to Raven’s ponytail.

     Bellamy can’t find anything to say, either, so he follows Raven into her room. They’re both silent while they strip layers off, and Nova is quiet, too, already halfway gone. She curls up in Bellamy’s arms, feet against his ribs, fingers twirling in the hair at the nape of his neck.

     He rubs her back, absently, the tiny knobs of her spine beneath his palm. Raven sits on the bed with a groan, and unbuckles her brace slowly. She slides it off and drops it to the ground.

     There’s still nothing to say. Bellamy gently pulls Nova’s arms through the holes cut into the sort-of poncho that she’s wearing. He removes her too-big pants, and settles her in the middle of the bed in her cotton leggings and ill-fitting shirt.

     Raven tugs her hair loose and combs her fingers through it. She watches Bellamy through her eyelashes, but she doesn’t do anything, or say anything. Her eyes are still red with crying.

     Bellamy hasn’t cried. Not properly. Not yet. He can’t look at his feelings head-on, but has to sidle up sideways. Can’t let himself think about Clarke properly, or imagine what it’s been like for her, to be so utterly alone, all this time. She knows that he abandoned her. He wonders what-

     -but he can’t wonder, because it’s too painful. Too raw. Like a scab that’s ripped off and revealed the wound still bleeding beneath He flips the light instead, then steps back to the bed and lies down on his back.

     Nova is crawling around, somewhere, hiding beneath bedclothes and poking cold little fingers into Bellamy’s feet. He stares straight upwards into the darkness and doesn’t think about Clarke. Doesn’t think about the death wave racing towards her. Did she see the rocket take off and know it was too late? Or did she run - back to the bunker, skidding around the corner to see… nothing. Empty space where _her people_ were supposed to be waiting. The people she’d sacrificed everything for.

     He’d thought he was over this. He’d thought there wasn’t any grief left to feel. This, though, this isn’t grief. It’s something different. The weight of it is crushing him.

     Raven settles her head on Bellamy’s chest. He feels her hair brushing his cheek, and his neck, and he brings his hand up to trace the line of her arm up to her shoulder.

     She’s trying to pretend she’s not crying. Bellamy can feel the little hitches in her breathing, every tiny movement that she makes, and he can hear her sniffing, no matter how subtle she tries to be.

     He should say something. Something comforting. Something encouraging.

     Bellamy can’t find any words. He pulls Raven closer, instead. Turns his head towards her until his lips brush her bare shoulder and then he stops. He breathes against her skin and carefully, gently, starts probing into that raw place in his mind. 

 

_June_

     They all start listening to Clarke’s transmissions more over the next few weeks. Everyone eases slowly into acceptance at their own speed. Bellamy’s willing to admit that he’s slower than most.

     Harper is the only one who listens every day, at first. And it is every day - or, close to. Sometimes Clarke skips a transmission. Sometimes she skips more than one. Bellamy always waits with a tight fist of anxiety in his chest until the next broadcast.

     “You don’t need to worry about her so much,” Raven tells him during one of those long pauses. “There’s no one else down there to hurt her.”

     Raven thinks that danger is other people. Bellamy looks at Emori, who knows better than any of them how to be alone. 

     She shrugs. “Raven’s not wrong.”

     He still feels better when Clarke tunes back in a few days later. There’s no apology or explanation for her absence; just the same old questions. _Bellamy? Are you up there? Are you alive? Are any of you alive?_

     Most of the messages are short. Some are longer - that’s when Clarke talks about what she’s doing. What she’s done. Little slices of her life, bits and pieces of the years that Bellamy’s missed. Years she should have spent up here, with the rest of them. He wishes that he could tell her what they’ve been doing. And maybe he will, one day, when they go back to Earth, but it won’t be the same. He won’t remember everything. It won’t be like she was here. She’s never been here.

     When he thinks about having her on the Ring, his bones ache with the strength of the wanting until he can hardly breathe. It’s not worth thinking about, not when it makes him feel like that. He pushes the thoughts to the back of his mind and folds other thoughts around them and on top of them.

     

     Clarke mentions _madi_ a lot. At first, Bellamy assumes it’s something he’s hearing badly because of the poor quality of transmission. Later, he thinks it might be a word in Trigedasleng. Clarke had always learnt the language faster than Bellamy. He assumes he’s just failing to translate.

     He asks Echo about it, once, while they’re sparring. He’s got her pinned to the mat, sitting on her back, her arms twisted behind her.

     She presses her chin into the ground and says, “It’s not a word I know. Are you sure it’s _madi_? There’s _mami._ That’s-”

     “I know what that means.” Bellamy rolls off her, wiping a hand across his sweaty forehead. “I win, by the way. And it’s _madi_. Definitely with a _duh_ sound.”

     Echo sits up, frowning. “I can’t think of a word like that. Could it be a name?”

     “No way,” Bellamy says. “She’s alone down there.”

     Echo shrugs. “She survived because she became a _natblida_.”

     “Yeah? So?”

     “So maybe she’s not alone.”

     “There aren’t any other night-bloods,” Bellamy says. “Luna was the last one. Remember?”

     “The world is a big place, Bellamy.”

          

     He listens more carefully after that. He starts to think that Echo’s right. The context gradually gets more clear. It’s not just, “ _Madi woke me up early today,”_ or “ _I get madi into the Rover when the dust storms blow up,”_ which could mean anything. It’s, “ _Madi told me about her parents,”_ and “ _Madi’s learning to drive the Rover.”_ Little slices of a life. Of another person on the ground with Clarke.

     Bellamy is convinced from the offset that Madi is a child. A little girl; someone to keep Clarke sane, and loved. Someone like Nova. He knows that there’s no evidence of that - they haven’t heard anything specific about Madi’s age, or even a gender -  but he believes it firmly. It helps him sleep, a little.

     It helps when Echo stays, too. When he can drag things out long enough that she’s too tired to leave afterwards, to traipse through the corridors to her own room.

     Bellamy sleeps more easily when she’s in the bed. He likes to hear her breathing. But the shock of falling asleep beside Echo and waking up alone never diminishes. He hates it; the darkness, and the confusion. The slow realisation that she’d left, and he hadn’t noticed. The weird, twisted sense of betrayal.

     They’re not anything to each other. Bellamy shouldn’t be expecting so much of her. He can’t seem to stop himself.

     Raven lets him crash with her whenever he wants. Sometimes Nova is there, and other times she isn’t. And that’s good, too, but Bellamy feels so… empty. Alone. Lost.

     He doesn’t want Raven’s company. Or Echo’s either. He wants hundreds of people; crowds of people; a whole village of people. Bellamy wants noise and laughter and the feeling of pushing your way past a group and saying, “Excuse me,” and “Sorry.” He wants Earth. He wants _home._

Jeez, and Bellamy had thought he was the most well-adjusted one up here.

 

     Nova turns two at the end of June. There’s no cake, and there are no presents, and Nova herself doesn’t even know it’s her birthday.

     Still, Bellamy watches her get more cuddles from the others, and more kisses. He finds himself being more patient with her; more willing to watch her climb up and down from the same chair sixty times in a row. More willing to cheer her on when she looks up at him with that beaming grin.

     He catches Murphy chasing her down the hallway with tickling claws outstretched. Bellamy finds Harper in the algae room, later, with Nova crouched down and splashing at the edge of the water, giggling while she coats her hands in priceless green goo.

     It’s also the day Bellamy sends his first transmission to Clarke. Raven sits beside him, and he holds her hand, and he holds the radio to his mouth, and he speaks. Words pour out of him - more than he’d meant to say - and when he’s done he sinks back in his chair and feels exhausted, and drained, and… lighter. So much lighter.

     “How do we know if she’s heard it?” he asks Raven.

     She squeezes Bellamy’s fingers. “We wait.”

     Six hours later, they get a reply. The first thing Clarke says is, “ _Bellamy_ ,” and he’s so damn sure she’s heard him. She knows he’s here.

     But then there’s a long, drawn-out hiss of static which could be a sigh or a break in the transmission. Clarke says, “ _I’m sorry. I can’t do this today. I can’t pretend today. Are you even up there? Do you…”_

      There’s nothing more. Bellamy pulls his hands away from Raven and cups them around his mouth and nose. He breathes shallowly through the sting of disappointment.

     “We’ll keep trying, Bell,” Raven says. “Okay? We won’t give up on her. She won’t give up on us, either, you know she won’t. Clarke’s tough.”

     Bellamy drops his hands from his face and meets Raven’s eyes. “Really?” he asks her. “You think she’s that tough? Tough enough to survive another three years down there? _Alone?_ ”

     “Hey,” Raven says. “I think you mean two years, eight months.”

     Bellamy waits, and then he nods. “Okay,” he says, “yeah. Two years, eight months. Clarke can handle that.” He keeps his eyes on Raven’s. “We can handle that.”


	6. The Murphy and Emori Bit (2152)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Geez my updates take forever with this one. My bad.
> 
> Erm. Some more mature stuff here, so with this and last chapter I've tentatively decided to change the rating of the fic. Not sure if it really deserves it - I've never seen Mature rating on anything which doesn't contain (explicit) smut - but Teen feels a little too low for this one now?
> 
> Man you know what bugs me? The freaking blood types on the 100. The writers were all like (on Tumblr or whatever idk) "oh yeah they're all genetically engineered to be O-neg" and WHY? Why pick O- when you could pick AB+? I mean, is it more important to have a society where they can all donate blood to anybody, but, should they ever be isolated from society, say, in the future when they return to Earth, no one will be able to give blood to them? Or is it more important to make them universal fricking recipients?  
> It's just bad science okay. I like blood types.  
> That said, AB+ would be way harder to control because parents could really just give whatever to their child. At least with two O- parents you know you'll get an O- child (unless some really weird stuff happens).  
> My blood type interests are not really relevant here though hey. I should post the chapter and go to bed. OKAY.

_October_

     Murphy’s knees are wet with blood. He’s sitting right in the middle of the puddle on the floor, and it’s soaking through his pants, and he doesn’t care. Both arms tight around Emori’s shoulders. Her head against his chest.

     She’s crying, but silently. Her body shakes with the sobs that she’s holding back. Only a little choked sound escapes, every so often. Murphy presses his cheek to the top of her head and her hair flutters when he breathes.

     They’ve been like this for a long time. The blood on the floor is starting to feel cold; congealing slowly, that iron smell in the air. Emori’s legs are painted red with it. There’s nothing Murphy can do, either, and nothing he can say. He just holds her. Her hands are shaking, covered in blood, held out away from Murphy.

     He doesn’t care about the blood. He wishes she’d hug him back.

     “If it doesn’t stop,” Murphy says quietly, “I’m taking you to Harper.”

     Emori sniffs, hard. Her voice wobbles. “No, don’t.”

     “I’m serious. It’s a lot of blood.”

     She huddles closer against him and tucks her knees to her chest. Her shoulder drives hard up against Murphy’s sternum but he doesn’t care. He wraps his arms around her.

     “It’s nothing,” Emori says. And then, with her voice breaking, “I’m sorry.”

     “What do you mean, you’re sorry? This isn’t your fault. This isn’t anyone’s fault.”

     She sniffs again, and shakes her head. Murphy can feel it. “It is my fault,” Emori says. “It happened because I am _Frikdreina_ , John. Not you.”

     Murphy pulls her closer, hefting her up halfway into his lap. Blood runs down her legs and onto the tops of his pants and he still doesn’t care. “Don’t say that.”

     “Why? It’s the truth.”

     “It’s not,” Murphy says firmly. “Stuff like this - you being _…_ the way you are - all of this. It’s just biology. Just coincidence. Not anyone’s fault.”

     This time, Emori raises her head to look at him. Murphy traces her features with his eyes. The soft slope of her nose, her wideset eyes, the dark ring of the tattoo and the raised skin of the scar across her cheek.

     “Do you have a word for it?” she asks. “In your language.”

     “Yeah. Don’t you?”

     She blinks. “I don’t think so. I’ve never heard anyone speak about it. It’s… shameful.”

     “Not here,” Murphy says. “Not to me.”

     “What is it? The word.”

     “Miscarriage,” he says.

 

     Emori tries to stop shivering. She’s curled up in the bed, under two layers of thick blankets. There are more blankets underneath her, and between her legs, to try and stop the blood which just keeps coming. The pain in the middle of her is still there. It comes in waves, spasms and twinges which make her grit her teeth and tighten her hands into fists.

     She’d always thought that she couldn’t have children. Her moon cycles had been irregular and too short and then stopped altogether. And she knew she’d been damaged by the radiation that had mutated her hand. It made sense.

     A long time ago, Emori had told John, and he hadn’t cared. Neither had she. Why should they care? A baby was the last thing they’d ever need. The furthest thought from their minds. Something they didn’t want.

     John had been the one who kept saying that there was a baby. She hadn’t believed him, not until he brought her to the machine in the Medical section. Until he ran the scanner over her abdomen, low down, and Emori heard the heartbeat. Fast and steady. Like galloping horses.

     She hadn’t wanted it. But she’d felt it slip out of her and leave a raw, aching emptiness behind.

     Why can’t she stop shivering?

 

     Murphy feels too sick to eat after cleaning it all up. The smell of blood lingers in his nostrils. The memories are slow to fade.

     He doesn’t think Emori will feel like eating either, but he goes along to dinner anyway, and picks up a couple of bowls of algae soup. Delicious.

     Raven stops him on the way out. “Where are you going?”

     “Emori’s sick,” he says. “We’ll eat in our room.”

     “Whoa,” Bellamy says, pricking his ears at the word ‘sick’. “How sick is she?”

     Murphy rolls his eyes. “Not that kind of sick,” he says. “Don’t enforce your precious quarantine on us. It’s just a headache, okay?”

     “Are you sure?”

     “Yeah, Bellamy, I’m pretty sure.” He doesn’t want to tell them, although Murphy doesn’t know why. A little leftover lack of trust? Or is it the pity that he doesn’t want? He isn’t even sure how _he_ feels about it yet.

     “But it’s Unity Day,” Harper says. “We’re supposed to eat together.”

     “This is slop,” Murphy says, shaking the bowls he’s holding, “and we eat together every day. I don’t think it’ll make a difference. It’s not like there’s any celebrating going on.”

     Harper and Monty exchange a look. Murphy glares. Okay, let them think he’s just an anti-social asshole. It’s not like he cares.

     “Can you-” Raven starts, but Murphy cuts her off.

     “Nope,” he says. “Can’t do anyone any favours. Just gonna take this back to Emori and eat. Okay?”

     “Whatever.”

     That was easy, Murphy thinks, and he gets out of the room unscathed. Raven is definitely pissed at him, and he thinks Bellamy might be too, but there’s no yelling. No one telling him what a selfish bastard he is - again.

     Murphy doesn’t mind being a selfish bastard, though. Not if it gets things done.

     The problem is, he sort of wants to tell them. Tell _somebody_. Because he can’t talk about this with Emori - not yet, not while she’s still got that blank look on her face - and Murphy thinks maybe he wants to talk. Maybe. He doesn’t know how he feels about it yet. Any of it.

     When he gets inside and sees Emori in the bed, curled with her knees to her chest and tear tracks on her cheeks, he stops wanting to talk. He just wants to crawl in behind her and hold her. So he does.

 

     A long time ago, on the Ground, it had only been Emori and Otan. Always the two of them, brother and sister against the world. They’d protected each other, played and laughed together. It was good. It was safe.

     When she’d been very small, Emori had wanted to stay with Otan forever. “ _Like grown-ups,”_ she’d said to him. _“Like partners, forever and ever. Like in love.”_

     He’d laughed at her. “ _That’s not what love is. Not real love.”_

     “ _What is it, then?”_

     Otan had said, “ _We’ll never find out,”_ because love wasn’t for _Frikdreina_ , that’s what he’d told her. They weren’t allowed to love. To be with someone, to have children and live happily ever after. Emori understood that, after another year or so.

     And of course as she grew older she found the difference between familial love and romantic love, too, and she understood that it wasn’t Otan that she wanted. He was a brother - an older brother - someone who protected her, and teased her… and ultimately betrayed her. More than once. She misses him, but in a distant, abstract way. The way she misses her parents.

     When John is gone, she misses him with a sharp, stabbing pain in her chest. And now she feels that same pain low down inside her, and she knows it’s because she had a part of John there and she lost it. _She_ lost it. _Frikdreina_.

 

     Murphy hadn’t meant to sleep, but when he wakes up he feels a little better. At least, he does for a minute or so, and then he touches Emori’s shoulder and says her name. When she doesn’t move, he sits up beside her.

     Shit, the blood. The bed is covered in it. Holy fuck, this can’t be normal. He leans over Emori and says, “Hey,” and she still doesn’t move. But she’s breathing - she’s definitely breathing. Her skin has turned an ugly puce colour and has a waxy sheen to it. Blood leeching out. So much blood. Fuck.

     He swings his legs off the edge of the bed and there’s blood on him again, too, but it doesn’t matter. This is too much for Murphy to handle alone.

     “I’m coming back,” he says to Emori, just in case she can hear him. “Wait for me.”

     His boots are still on his feet - he can’t believe he fell asleep wearing his boots, jeez. Murphy’s stride is wide as he leaves their room, closing the door quietly behind him. His steps get wider down the corridor until he’s running flat out.

     He’ll tell the first person he sees, Murphy thinks, even if they’re not the one he wants to talk to. Even if the idea of telling Bellamy or Raven or Echo about the baby makes his face hot and his jaw clench.

     Except the first person he sees is Harper, and Murphy skids to a stop beside her and says, “Thank god.”

     She stares at him. “What? Murphy, oh my god, you’re covered in blood.”

     “It’s Emori,” he says. “I really need your help.”

     And Harper says, “Yeah, okay,” and starts running beside him.

     She doesn’t ask any questions. Murphy likes that about Harper. She’s about the only one who’d do this for him - just spring into action without wasting time being all suspicious. On the Ground, they’d never spent much time together. It had meant that Murphy didn’t know her well. It had also meant that he’d never had a chance to shoot her, stab her or hang her, murder her best friend or kill her puppy or whatever the fuck else he’s done wrong.

     So they’re on fairly even footing. And Murphy likes that. They don’t owe each other anything.

     “Tell me what happened,” Harper pants as they reach Murphy’s door.

     He shoulders it open and goes straight to the bed, dropping onto his knees and touching Emori’s face. Still breathing. “I think she was pregnant?”

     Harper says, “What?” and then zeroes in on the important word. “ _Was?”_

“It started this morning,” Murphy says. “The bleeding. She said she felt kinda sick and sore. It’s just not stopping.”

     “Okay.” Harper reaches over the bed and pulls back the blanket. Emori is spread out underneath, the t-shirt of Murphy’s that she’d worn last night reaching down to her mid-thigh. The hem is red like it’s been dipped in dye. There’s a pool of blood on the bed.

     “Fuck,” Murphy says, because it’s even worse like this. “Where does it all come from?”

     “I don’t know,” Harper says. “Help me get her up. She has to go to Med.”

     “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

     “Come on, Murphy, it’s not like something I ever studied.”

     “Yeah, but you’ve got all the same organs,” he says. He leans forward and gets his hands under Emori’s shoulders, lifting her gently. She flops like a rag doll.

     “So does a horse,” Harper says. “Have you got her?”

     “Yeah.”

     “Okay.” She piles blankets on top of Emori until he’s got an Emori-shaped blanket bundle in his arms.

     Murphy hefts her higher, pulling her in closer to his chest. He feels the wet slide of blood on his forearms and glances down at Harper. She’s chewing her lower lip.

     “Let’s hurry,” Murphy says.

     “Right.”

 

     Murphy isn’t entirely sure how the Ark had wrangled it to make O-negative the presiding blood type. Some sort of fucked up genetic engineering, probably, or maybe it had happened before the Ark was even formed. Maybe everyone who’d been up on the space stations had been O-neg and after that it was just an accident.

     Whatever the reason, it means that they can all give blood. To anyone. Murphy, Bellamy, Harper, Monty and Raven. Their blood is gold. So it doesn’t matter which one of them donates to Emori - it doesn’t even matter that they have no clue what blood type Emori has - it’ll work just the same.

     There’s five of them able to donate, which means that no one has to lose too much blood. When Murphy starts to feel tired, and dizzy, Monty tags him out. It really is that simple.

     He stays beside Emori and holds her hand. “Do you think it’s enough?”

     “I don’t know,” Harper says. “But she looks better.”

     Yeah, she does. Less faded. More like herself. Which means that there’s no real reason for Murphy to stay here. Bellamy’s already tried to have _the talk_ with him twice. It’s about time Murphy fessed up.

     “Keep an eye on her,” he tells Harper, and he stands up slowly, still a little light-headed, and leaves the room.

     Bellamy’s leaning against the wall right outside, inspecting his fingernails. “How’s she doing?”

     “Better, I think,” Murphy says. “I guess we should talk.”

     “I guess we should.” Bellamy straightens up, meeting Murphy’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”

     Murphy can’t hold the other man’s gaze. He looks away, instead, trying not to let anything show. “Thanks,” he says shortly. “Can we eat while we talk?”

     “Sure.”

    

     It’s easier than Murphy had thought, to spill the story. It helps that Bellamy doesn’t ask questions. He just waits. Listens.

     Raven limps in after a little while. She’s holding a pad of gauze to the crook of her elbow. “Emori’s awake,” she says. “She’s asking for you.”

     Murphy shoves his chair back and stands. “She’s okay?”

     “Yeah. She’s going to be fine.”

     The breath all leaves Murphy’s chest in a rush. “Okay,” he says, but his heart is pounding with relief. She’ll be okay. Shit. Thank god.

     Raven grabs his arm when he walks past her. “Hey, Murphy? Next time, just tell us what’s going on.”

     “There won’t be a next time,” Murphy says. “This is never happening again.”

 

_November_

     “Tell me one of your stupid stories,” Emori requests. She’s got her head in John’s lap, looking up at him, and his fingers smooth back the hair over her ears.

     He smirks. “Wow, I’m flattered.”

     “Shut up and tell me one.”

     “Just the normal stupid kind or the extremely stupid kind?”

     He thinks he’s so funny. He’s not funny. “A moon story.”

     “Mm, okay.” John takes a moment, thinking, and Emori watches the lines of his face. His pale eyes, the straight bridge of his nose, the sharp edges of his jaw. No blood or bruises on him, not anymore, just the dark stubble in places that are too hard to reach with a straight knife. The ragged edges of his hair stick out at odd angles.

     She reaches up to trace a finger along the bow of his lips. “I love you, you know.”

     John reaches up and pulls her hand away. “How am I supposed to tell you a story when you’re sticking your fingers in my mouth?”

     This time, Emori laughs. “Okay. Tell me your story.”

     “There were these aliens on the moon,” John begins, and she closes her eyes.

     Like this it’s just darkness, and she can rest with the sound of his voice and the feeling of his hands in her hair. It doesn’t matter what happens tomorrow, or in two weeks, or two years from now. Moments like these are the kind she won’t forget. A piece of John that she’ll never lose.

 

     Raven snags John’s sleeve as he walks past. “Hey,” she says. “Murphy. Can I get your help with this?”

     “Er.” John looks over at Emori. “We were going to… eat.”

     “And then have sex,” Emori adds, because his excuse is shitty and she’s not going to pretend to be embarrassed.

     John just rolls his eyes. “Yeah,” he says. “That.”

     “Okay, great, but I’m supposed to stand on this chair to try and repair this fucking duck,” Raven says, “and the chair has fucking wheels, so someone has to help me.” She stares at John. “Maybe someone who’s the reason I have fucking terrible balance now?”

     Emori frowns. “Fucking duck?”

     “No,” Raven says. “Duck- _tuh_. With a _tuh_. Duct.”

     “Oh,” Emori says, and honestly she’s a little disappointed. It’s been a long time since she’s seen a duck. Or eaten one.

     “Just hold the chair,” Raven says. “Or hold me. I don’t care. Hold _something_.”

     John looks at Emori, but she’s not the one who comes up with shitty excuses, he is. Emori is only good at honesty.

     “Can’t we just not help?” she asks.

     “Uh, I dunno,” Raven says. “Can you breathe in the vacuum of space?”

     “No.”

     “Okay then.”

     John sighs. “How long’s it gonna take, Raven?”

     There’s a growl from somewhere down the corridor. A ferocious one. Emori turns around, planting her hands on her hips. She watches the end of the corridor.

     “I’m a _mon-stahh_ ,” Nova yells, rounding the corner and hurtling towards them. She pauses, hands up by her face like claws, and growls again. “I’m a _eat you_.”

     Bellamy comes after her. “Hey, Raven. Can you keep her for an hour?”

     “Nope.”

     “But I’ve got an algae shift,” Bellamy says. A wrinkle appears between his eyebrows. “Where’s Harper?”

     “Sleeping, I think.” Raven shrugs.

     Bellamy glares at her. “What are you so busy doing, then?”

     Nova growls. “Mama, I’m a monster.”

     “Welding,” Raven says. “And Murphy’s helping me.”

     “ _Mama!_ ”

     “Okay, so what about Echo?”

     “ _A monster!”_

     “How am I supposed to know where Echo is?”

     “ _Mama!_ ”

     Emori just stands there, with her hands still on her hips, and none of them look at her twice. Like she doesn’t exist. Like she’s not a real person, or she’s not an adult, or she’s suddenly not capable of looking after this child who she’s known since _birth_.

     It’s because of what happened to her. The blood. The loss. They know, now, that it was Emori’s fault. They know that she’s somehow tainted. That’s why they won’t let her care for Nova. And Emori clenches her teeth and she _hates_ them for it. Because Emori can imagine herself never speaking to any of them again when they hit the Ground - save for John, of course - but she always somehow feels like she’ll keep tabs on Nova. As if Nova might turn out to be someone worth knowing. Worth caring about.

     She starts walking without meaning to, and her shoulder bumps Bellamy as she passes him. Emori doesn’t blink. She doesn’t turn around, either, even when John  calls her name. Even when she hears Nova’s little voice.

     “Mori! I’m a monster!”

     They all think Emori hasn’t noticed, but she has. They’ve been keeping Nova away from her. When Emori enters a room, Nova will be dragged out. It’s taken them all this long - nearly three _years_ \- to realise that she can’t be trusted.

     So be it. She’d never wanted to be anything more than alive up here. That’s all she needs. To breathe and sleep and eat. Companionship doesn’t need to be in the picture.

     Except for John, but it’s different with him. He understands.

     Emori goes to the window. Not the stupid one overlooking Earth, where Bellamy and Echo are always moping and crying and carrying on. No, she goes to the window on the opposite side of the Ring. The one which just stares out into nothing.

     That’s the part Emori likes about it. When she’d first seen it, she truly had mistaken the blackness for nothingness. The thought wasn’t new to her. The idea that they were alone in this vast, empty, uncaring world. She understands that.

     But then John had talked about space. And Emori had started to see the stars, just like she could on the Ground. Not just specks of light, but vast swathes of brightness cutting through the black, sprinklings of stars so far away and close together that she can hardly see the individual sparks. There are intense whites and brilliant blues and hues of purple and red and all together it’s startling and wonderful and magical.

     There’s not a single spot which is just black. And nowhere out there is truly empty. All those lights, they’re suns, just like her own sun. Maybe there are planets circling those suns. Maybe there are people living on those planets - or aliens, like in John’s silly stories, or even space monsters, like the games they play with Nova. The possibilities are infinite.

     It’s all life. It’s full of life.

 

 

     Raven wobbles and Murphy tightens his hands around her hips, fingers digging in. “Watch it.”

     “Sorry,” she says. “A little more.”

     She raises her arms up over her head again, and Murphy adjusts his grip. He can feel the give of her skin above the thick material of her pants. The way they are now, if Raven falls, she’s taking Murphy down with her. Or, rather, she’ll fall _on_ him.

     Apparently Murphy has decided this is acceptable. He’s certainly not moving, anyway. He’s not letting go of Raven, either. He’s not entirely sure that he _wants_ to be the one taking all the risks - but, also, it’s Raven. They need her.

     And, yeah, Murphy still feels a little guilty. He’s apologised, and they’ve moved on, but the thought is still there in the back of his head. It’s not something he can really make up for.

     “Emori knows what you’re doing, by the way,” he says, to distract himself.

     “What? Welding?”

     “With Nova.”

     Raven says, “Oh,” absently. She clicks her tongue against her teeth as she presses the goggles harder against her face and starts the flame up again. Murphy can hear it roaring. He drops his head, looking down  to avoid the blinding light.

     “It’s not making her feel better,” he says to his feet, even though Raven can’t hear him.

     Five minutes later the torch cuts off and she twists under Murphy’s hands.

     “I know she won’t magically feel better,” Raven says. “We just thought she might not want to be forced to spend time looking after someone else’s kid right now.”

     Murphy doesn’t bother looking up, and after a moment the welding starts up again.

     The thing is, Nova doesn’t feel like _someone else’s_ kid. She feels like this joint project between all of them. They’ve watched her grow and change from this tiny baby who cried and pooped into a bigger, endlessly talkative baby who _tells_ people when she poops. It’s not like Murphy’s seen her every few months, like some distant acquaintance on the Ark who always tells her how much she’s grown. He’s seen Nova practically every day of her life, and so has Emori.

     Raven stops. “Okay,” she says. “I’m done.” She passes the torch down to Murphy first, so that he can set it safely aside before Raven bends her good knee and Murphy holds her when she jumps to the floor.

     “Just let her spend time with the kid,” he says. “It can’t make her feel any worse.”

 

_December_

     A long time ago, Emori had watched a mixture of blood and bone and bark and bronze rubbed into the skin of a woman who cried as it happened. A little later, she’d seen the same symbol etched onto the back of a man’s neck while he held his dead wife in his arms.

     When she’d been old enough, Otan had put his hands on Emori’s shoulders and helped to hold her still while her face was marked. When their mother died, she’d returned the favour, and wielded the needle against the round muscle of his shoulder.

 

     Echo has her legs folded in front of her. She’s got her hair pulled back, but wisps of it escape, framing her face. It makes her look younger. Less like the Azgeda warrior. More like Skaikru _._ Like someone who belongs up here.

     But the eyes always give her away. Eagle eyes. Predator eyes. Fixed on Emori.

     “Be ready,” Echo says, leaning forwards.

     Emori takes a deep breath in and lets it out slowly. She waits for the sting of the needle. It’s always easier after the first one. Pricks, stabs, broken bones. Heartbreak, betrayal, murder. Everything’s  simpler the second time around.

     Echo’s good with her hands. She moves fast, pausing occasionally to re-dip the needle, or to wipe off ink and blood, and a pattern traces across Emori’s skin. It’s not so different from being on the Ground. The ink they’re using is from a bottle in the Chancellor’s office, and Emori’s staring at the stars, not the sand, but that’s all.

     Well, and there’s an Ice Nation warrior bent over her. Echo’s hair falls over her shoulder and brushes Emori’s cheek. Echo’s hands are warm on Emori’s skin, holding it taut.

 

     They’ve only been going for about ten minutes when footsteps ring out against the metal floor of the corridor. Emori doesn’t move, but she says, “What?”

     It’s Harper’s voice that answers. “Shouldn’t this be happening in Med?”

     “Why should it?” Echo asks.

     “Because it’s - you know - clean?”

     “I wanted to see the stars,” Emori says.

     Then the baby’s voice. High-pitched and unmistakeable. “What’s it?”

     “Nova,” Emori says.

     Harper moves around until Emori can see her, and she settles down with her back up to the wall and Nova in her lap. “Emori’s getting a tattoo, baby girl,” she says.

     “Tattoo?”

     “Like on my face,” Emori says. She lifts her fingers slowly, careful not to nudge Echo, and touches the skin around her eye where she knows the ring is.

     Nova mimics the movement. “Mori, I did have night.”

     “What?”

     “Night _mare_ ,” Harper says. She sighs. “We woke up way too early, didn’t we, baby?”

     Nova pouts. “Bad dream.”

     “You had a bad dream?” Emori says. “What happened?”

     But Nova just says, “Yup,” and burrows herself more snugly back into Harper’s arms. She pushes the tangled black curls away from her face clumsily and stares at the needle and Echo's fast-moving hands.

 

     “Halfway?” Emori asks, when she feels the sharp heat of it spread a little further down her ribs.

     Echo says, “Yes,” and they carry on in silence. Harper yawns, and Nova pats the older girl’s knee, and they keep watching.

     When it’s finished, the spiralling knot of it thick and black on Emori’s side, Echo wipes the skin clean with water.

     Nova crawls out of Harper’s lap and reaches forwards. “Mori, I can see.”

     “It’s my tattoo,” Emori says. She lets Nova put her little sticky hands everywhere, all over the tattoo and Emori’s arm and her bare abdomen.

     “Ooh.”

     “Do you like it?”

     “Pretty,” Nova says. “Now me, me.”

     Emori laughs. “No. Not for you.”

     The lower lip gets pushed forward, and Nova’s eyebrows come down in a pouty sort of glower. Emori pulls her shirt down and brushes a kiss over the coarse strands of Nova’s hair. It doesn’t taste great.

     “We can go over it in two days,” Emori says. “To make sure it sticks.”

     Echo shakes her head. “Three days. You’re a slow healer.”

     Emori shrugs, sitting up and tugging her shirt down. “Okay. Three days.”

    

     She goes to Med along to get the gauze for it. When she twists and shifts fabric and flesh out of the way, Emori can see the spiralling lines of the tattoo on her side. Fluid curves and spiky points. It’s easier to see in the mirror, and she spends a long time there, shirt tugged up against her chest, curving back and forth in front of the polished glass. The symbol is the same as she remembers. The way she’d drawn it for Echo to copy.

     There’s a quiet sound behind her and Emori turns.

     Harper holds out a pad of gauze. “What does it mean?”

     Emori considers the mark for a moment longer before she sticks the gauze down over it. “Loss,” she says.      

 

    

     Murphy is allowed to watch, three days later, when the tattoo is redone. He’s not allowed to hold Emori’s hand while it happens. Apparently that’s not cool.

     It doesn’t matter, because he’ll kiss the stain on her ribs later, going over the bruised flesh with his tongue and his teeth. And once he’s got the new skin down; once it’s memorised, once Murphy knows it by rote, then he’ll turn his attention to the rest of her.

     There’s not a single tiny part of Emori he could ever forget.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thinking of time jumping a couple of years after this. I was always sort of planning that from the beginning - now I'm enjoying myself a lot - so I'm not 100% sure what I'll do yet. If anyone has any opinions, feel free to weigh in! I'd love to hear it.


	7. The Bellamy and Raven Bit (2154)

_April_

     Bellamy opens his eyes and Nova is standing beside his couch-bed, leaning over his face.

     “Uh,” he says. Her hair brushes against his neck. “Hi?”

     “Are you awake now?”

     “Yup,” Bellamy says. “How long have you been in here?”

     “I dunno.”

     “Who’s supposed to be watching you?”

     Nova looks a little bit guilty. “No one.”

     “Nova.”

     She sighs, pushes her hair back with both chubby hands. “Emori.”

     Bellamy sits up a bit, pushing back the blanket. Nova climbs up onto the couch and sits on her knees opposite him. She’s got her serious face on, Bellamy thinks. He presses his knuckles against his lips to hide his smile.

     “Why aren’t you with Emori?” he asks, after a little while.

     “Because,” Nova says.

     “Because?”

     She heaves her skinny little shoulders up and down in a clumsy shrug. “Just because.”

     “You know the rules, don’t you?”

     “Uh huh.” Nova twists her fingers together and glares down at the blankets. “Rules are stupid.”

     “Not always,” Bellamy says. “That’s not true.”

     “But sometimes,” Nova says. She pouts.

     She looks like Raven. That heavy lower lip, one side of her mouth turned further down than the other. Almond-shaped eyes and thick lashes. Bronze skin and a straight nose and that little pointed chin.

     Bellamy wants her to be his. He tries not to care - tries to think that it doesn’t matter, that she’s as much his as anyone’s, that he’d love her this much regardless.

     Well. That last one is probably true. She’s a loveable kid.

     “Okay,” he says. “So you wanted someone to play with?”

     Nova nods. “Yeah.”

     “That’s why you came to wake me up?”

     “Uh huh.”

     Bellamy leans forward a little, grins at her. “Don’t you know what happens when you wake me up?”

     Nova’s pout disappears. She looks up at him through her hair and she says, “Oh, no.”

     “Oh no is right,” Bellamy agrees. “When I get woken up I turn into-”

     “A _monster,_ ” Nova gasps, but there’s a sparkle in her eyes.

     Bellamy lunges forward and grabs Nova under her arms, pulling her into his lap. He wiggles his fingers across her belly, under her arms. She squirms and laughs breathlessly, giggling until her eyes are damp with tears and her smile has spread so wide he can see every one of the bright white baby teeth. She’s sprawled with her head against Bellamy’s knee, kicking her feet out at his face.

     He catches both feet in one of his hands. “Hey. No kicking.”

     “I have to fight the tickle monster!”

     There’s not enough sun up here for Nova to have freckles. The windows in the Go-Sci Ring were always better shielded, and more carefully positioned. The sun goes past them fast and disappears. Not like Factory Station, where Bellamy had grown up.

     Her hair is a little darker than Raven’s and it curls around her ears, dropping into long, tangled ringlets down her back. Bellamy thinks, sometimes, that he sees something of Octavia in Nova’s smile. Or hears his sister when Nova laughs. It’s been so long since he’s heard Octavia laugh. He wonders if she’s found anything to smile about in the Bunker. God, he hopes so.

     So maybe she’s his. Or maybe her hair is like Finn’s, and her smile is like Wick’s, and…

     But she’s Raven’s. And she’s Bellamy’s too, up here. Nova loves him like she loves the rest of them, fiercely and eternally and like it’s the easiest thing in the world. It’s stupid to want more.

     “Okay, sweetie,” Bellamy says, rolling Nova away from him. “We should get you back to Emori.”

     “Aw,” Nova whines. “Why?”

     “I’m going to go and do the system checks,” Bellamy says. Might as well, now that he’s up. He’s finding it hard to fall asleep lately. Too much to think about.

     “Can’t I come with you?”

     Bellamy stands up from the bed, looks down at her. “It’s boring,” he says. “Just a lot of walking.”

     “I know. I just want to come anyway.”

     Octavia had followed Bellamy around their tiny living quarters. Whenever he turned around, she’d be right behind him. Always standing too close, and her high-pitched, little-girl voice asking him questions. _What are you doing, Bell? Can I help? I want to do that too._

     “Okay,” Bellamy says. “I could use the company.” He swings Nova off the bed, whirls her around until she squeals before he sets her on the ground. “We’ll go and let Emori know that you’re safe, first.”

     Nova slides her hand into his. “I just wanted to see you,” she said. “I didn’t mean to break the rules.”

     She did mean to, Bellamy knows. She’s breaking rules more and more often - and it’s getting harder and harder to keep her away from the more sensitive parts of the Ring. The tech in the monitoring room, the controls in the algae farm, the old, empty dropship.

     “It’s okay,” he tells Nova. “Come on.”

     She trots alongside him happily, pulling on his hand. “When we go Ground,” she says, looking sideways up at Bellamy like it’s a question.

     “Yeah?”

     “Is there gonna be lots more people?”

     “That’s the plan,” he says. He doesn’t think about what Clarke had said - about the Bunker buried beneath tons of rubble so thick that she can’t do anything.

     “But any of them kids?” Nova asks. “Like me? Kids like me?”

     “Definitely,” Bellamy says automatically, and then he pauses. Thinks about it a little more. Population control in the Bunker has got to be on point. They’d suffocate if there were too many people, or if they were under there for too long-

     He turns his mind back to Nova. She’s squeezing his hand, jogging to keep up with his strides, saying, “What do other kids look like?”

     “They all look different,” Bellamy says. “Like we all look different.”

     “We look like us,” Nova objects. “Ground people are different from us.”

     “No, they look the same. They’re people too.”

     Nova frowns. “But, you said.”

     “What did I say?”

     “You said, you said, that Clarke is a person who looks different than us.”

     “Right,” Bellamy says, “but she’s still a person.”

     “No, because she just has a radio.”

     The conversation’s going too fast for him to follow. Bellamy can’t think of anything he can say to convince her, anyway. He tries to imagine growing up with the same seven people. No one else. Just seven.

     Well. Octavia had only ever met two.

     He remembers how overwhelmed she’d been at that stupid masquerade. But she’d smiled, and he’d felt responsible for the joy on her face. He’d felt responsible for everything back then.

     Some things never change. “You’ll see,” he tells Nova. “When we get back down to Earth. You’ll see lots of people, okay?”

     “Are you sure?”

     “I’m sure,” Bellamy says. He _is_ sure _._ He has to be. “I promise.”

     Nova wriggles her shoulders. “Promise,” she repeats. “Good.”

 

     When Bellamy crouches down to get a look at the oxygenator, Nova leans over his back. She twines her arms around his neck and says, “What we looking for?”

     “Green lights,” Bellamy says. “See? All green. That’s good.”

     “Real good,” Nova agrees. “Good for breathing. Right?”

     “Exactly. Smart girl.” He smiles to himself, stands up without shaking her off. Nova squeaks and clings tighter, her legs coming up to hook around Bellamy’s ribs.

     “Hey!” she says. “I fall!”

     “Better hold tight, little monkey.”

     “I’m not a monkey.”

     “You are a monkey.”

     Nova digs her bony chin into his shoulder. “I’m _not_.”

     “Whatever you say, monkey.”

     Nova considers this. “Okay. You can be my monkey slave and I can be the Monkey King.”

     “Girls are queens,” Bellamy says. “Like emperors and empresses. Kings and queens.”

     “What about commanders?”

     Bellamy shrugs, grinning when Nova shrieks and clings tighter. “Commanders are just commanders.”

     “Okay,” she says. “I can be the Monkey _Heda_. I say go… that way!” She tugs on Bellamy’s ear.

     “Ow, hey.”

     “Don’t say ‘ow hey’, say ‘yes Monkey _Heda_ ’,” Nova admonishes.

     “Yes, Monkey _Heda_ ,” Bellamy grumbles, and he turns down the corridor that Nova had indicated.

     She tugs on his other ear. “Now this way!”

     “That’s a wall.”

     Nova giggles, high and sweet. “Monkeys love running into walls.”

     Bellamy rolls his eyes. “Of course they do.”

 

     In eleven months, the Earth will be radiation free. Or at least the levels will be low enough for it to be _survivable._

     It’s crazy, now that they’re so close, to see the milestone looming. Less than a year. They’d gone up here expecting the time to drag on forever - and, it has, in some ways - but now it’s so close. Bellamy’s kind of getting a little freaked out about it, honestly. There’s so much to try and figure out. Do they aim for Clarke, or Polis? Will they even be able to see Polis? Will they even be able to aim at all?

     And there’ll be all the acclimatising to do once they finally get down. Getting used to life on the ground all over again. Refamiliarising themselves with the people from underground. Learning who survived.

     God, it’s all going to be one big mess. But the seven of them up here (or, eight) - that’s one thing Bellamy can control.

     He’s been talking about it more and more lately, forcing them all to run through scenarios until even Harper lost her temper and snapped at him. Bellamy knows he’s being a pain in the ass, but he can’t help it. It’s how he handles things. It’s the way he settles himself down, by trying to plan for every possible eventuality.

     By now, he should know that’s never going to work. It’s always something he doesn’t anticipate which shuts him down.

 

_May_

     Raven wakes gasping with a pounding, stabbing pain behind her eyes. She knows what it is straight away, tumbles off the bed in her rush to get up and smacks against the floor. Her bad leg crumples when she tries to stand.

     No oxygen. That's what this is.

     “Shit, shit, shit,” Raven says, and where the fuck is her stupid brace? Why doesn’t she sleep with it on? Fucking idiot. She scans the room for it and her eyes are fuzzy and dim. No brace.

     It doesn’t matter; she doesn’t need it. She crawls across the room instead of walking, dragging one aching, burning leg behind her. The pony bottle is on a table at the other end, and Raven reaches up for it, kneeling on her good leg, stretching her arms until the bottle slides towards her and falls into her hands.

     Perfect. She puts the mask to her face and takes a quick breath in just to check it’s working. It is. Raven holds the edge of the mask between her teeth and crawls again, needing both hands to balance her against the useless weight of her bad leg. She gets back to the bed and reaches up onto it, fumbling, finding a little shoulder and then a little hip. She drags Nova towards her.

     “Wake up, kiddo,” she says, and Nova slides off the bed and lands in Raven’s lap with a disoriented little cry.

     “Mama?”

     “Sorry,” Raven murmurs, wiping the sweaty hair back from Nova’s face. “Here you go.” She puts the mask over Nova’s mouth and nose, pressing it down as tightly as she dares to get a seal.

     Nova twists her head and fights to get away from it, still not properly awake. Raven’s brain screams at her that they don’t have time for this, even as her heart is breaking for the scared, sleepy little girl.

     She can spare an extra moment. “It’s okay,” Raven says, “It’s okay.” She pulls the mask back and bends to press a kiss to Nova’s forehead; to her eyelids, to her cheeks. Soft feather-kisses across the girl’s face. “You need to wake up, Novie. Be strong for me, okay?”

     Raven cradles the girl against her chest, like she had when Nova was a baby, and watches her sleepy face. Those tired eyes blink open. Amber brown, with a darker ring around the edges, and there’s so much intelligence in there. So much sharp wit, and joy, and, right now, dazed confusion.

     “That’s my girl,” Raven says. “Mask on.” She holds it out and Nova nods and Raven presses it back down over the little nose and mouth.

     “Mama?” Nova tries to say through the mask.

     “It’s just a problem with the air,” Raven tells her. “I need you to breathe from this until we fix it. Do you understand?”

     Nova nods.

     Raven takes her hand away from the mask and presses two fingers to her temple. The problem is, she knows it’s not just oxygen deprivation. It’s CO2 poisoning, and that’s what will kill them. It must have been hours that the oxygenator hasn’t been working, if Raven’s headache is anything to go by. Maybe four hours.

     How has no one noticed yet?

     Or maybe they _have_ noticed, and there’s nothing they can do.

     Raven pulls her exhausted mind back on task. She has to get up and out of here, and she has to get the oxygenator working again. Or fix whatever else is causing this issue.

     Her mind is stuck on Nova. How long until the pony bottle runs out of air? Nova’s smaller than the rest of them. A high concentration of carbon dioxide could kill her quickly, and cause permanent damage even more quickly.

     That’s not what she’s supposed to be focusing on. If she wants to solve the other problems, she has to get Nova safe first. Otherwise she’ll be working with half of her mind and worrying about Nova with the other half.

     “Have you seen my brace?” Raven asks Nova.

     Nova says something muffled behind the mask.

     “Use your hands,” Raven tells her. “Or shake your head yes or no.”

     Nova points; under the bed.

     Gently, Raven slides the little girl off her lap. She takes both of Nova’s hands and presses them to the mask. “Keep holding this,” she instructs, and then she twists around and reaches under the low camp bed. Her fingers touch the familiar buckles almost at once. What the fuck is it doing down here?

     Doesn’t matter. Raven drags the brace out and snaps it into place and immediately she feels better. Stronger. She can walk. She can do this.

     Nova is on the edge of four years old. She’s growing taller, with long legs and arms starting to lose that baby fat. There’s a warm slackness to her body, still heavy with sleep when Raven lifts her up. She’d rather put Nova on her back, or wrap the girl around her like a little clinging sloth, but the mask might fall. Raven can’t stand that idea. Instead, she keeps Nova cradled in her arms, a hand under bony shoulders and another under the girl’s knees. Like this, she can see the mask.

     The weight throws Raven way off. She lurches as she walks, her chest heaving. It feels as though there’s a closed valve in her lungs; as though she can’t get enough air in, no matter how deep she breathes. But Raven staggers on, clutching Nova to her chest. The girl’s eyes are open, wide and worried, fixed on Raven’s face.

     “It’s okay,” Raven says, or, she thinks she says. It’s hard to breathe. Harder to think. Stabs of pain dig into her knee and shoot up her thigh. Her calf is totally numb. Twice, her foot trails when she walks, and she nearly falls. The muscles aren’t working. The brace isn’t working. Or maybe it’s her leg? Maybe some extra damage has been done and Raven hasn’t noticed. She has the idea to reach around to her spine to check for more bullet holes, but her arms are full.

     She looks down and sees Nova. Nova. She has to get Nova somewhere. Somewhere safe. Nova needs to be safe.

     And the rest of them need to be safe, Raven realises, because they’re in space and they need air, they need to breathe, they’re _dying_ …

     Gradually she comes back to herself and realises that she’s stopped in the hallway, leaning against a wall and panting. Why did she stop?

     Nova is speaking behind the mask. Raven can’t understand what she’s saying.

     “It’s okay, kiddo. I’ve got you.” She pulls Nova up tighter to her chest and wonders where they are. This corridor isn’t near the oxygenator. Why would Raven go here? Why would she carry her daughter here when this place isn’t safe?

     Daughter. A daughter. The thought forces a laugh out of Raven, and she feels Nova jump, startled.

     “Sorry,” she says. “Something funny.” She hefts Nova higher and checks that the girl is still wearing her mask. She is. It distorts her face.

     Raven wants a mask. She wants to _breathe_.

     They’re near the hydro farm and that’s why she’d come here. The algae. Raven pushes off from the wall and her walk is jerky and unsteady but there’s a door ahead of her. She understands now. She can’t get an arm out from Nova to open it.

     “Gotta put you down,” she says. She doesn’t want to. She can’t. Her legs won’t bend. Her arms are stiff and tight.

     Raven juggles Nova in one arm, pulling the girl close against her, and reaches out with the other to hit the door button. It hisses open and she stumbles in, trips and falls and lands on her bad knee. Her whole leg screams with pain - or maybe Raven is the one who’s screaming, because she’s going to drop Nova - but she doesn’t, because Nova is wriggling out of her arms and landing on the floor and crawling away. Away from her.

     The door whooshes closed. Raven slumps against the wall. She thinks of swimming. She thinks of floating. Being weightless. The sound of her heartbeat in her ears and the loudness of each breath inside her spacesuit. Breathe in, breathe out.

     In, out.

     _In…_

     _Out…_

     _Mama._

     It’s so quiet. Barely a whisper.

     _Mama._

     Raven opens her eyes and finds Nova’s face in her face. Nova’s hands are on Raven’s shoulders and she’s leaning up into her.

     “Mama?”

     “I’m awake,” Raven says. “Hi. I’m here. Are you okay?”

     Nova rubs her fingers over Raven’s cheeks. “Mama, you hurt?”

     “I’m not, kiddo, I’m fine.” The hydro farm is oxygen rich - the algae produces it. It’s gotta be the safest place on the Ark right now. And Raven’s breathing has slowed and settled now that she’s sitting still, giving her lungs a chance to catch up.

     She’s leaning against a wall with her bad leg splayed out in front of her. Nova is crouching on her thighs.

     “Where’s your mask?” Raven asks her.

     “Here,” Nova says. “I don’t want it.”

     “Put it on your face, Nova.”

     “No.”

      Raven fights through a thudding in her head and forces herself to frown. “Don’t make me ask again,” she says.

     Nova presses the mask to her mouth. Raven reaches over to adjust the position. Sulking, Nova slides off Raven’s legs and crawls a short distance away.

     Now that the girl’s not in the way, Raven can see that she’s put her brace on backwards. It looks so stupid that she almost laughs. What the fuck had she been thinking? She tries to remember that mad panic back in her room, but it’s a hazy mystery. How had Raven even gotten down here with the brace in this mess?

     She reaches forwards, grunting as she uses both arms to move her leg into a more easily accessible position. The muscles twitch and spasm of their own accord, uncontrollable. Raven waits it out, grinding her teeth until the leg relaxes and she can unbuckle and reposition the brace.

     When it’s done, Raven levers herself to her feet. Her knee twinges. It’s bad, but it’s not unbearable.

     “Nova,” she says, “you have to stay in here. Understand?”

     “Yes.” Nova is still sulking. She’s hunched over with her back to Raven.

     “Do _not_ go near the water,” Raven says. “Do not leave the room. Do not take off your mask. Those are rules, okay? Serious rules.”

     “Serious rules,” Nova repeats, muffled.

     “Love you, kiddo.”

     That has Nova scrambling to her feet, ripping the mask from her face. “Where you going?”

     “I have to get everyone else. You stay here and wait for them.”

     “No, Mama, I can come with you.”

     “Stay here.”

     “Mama-”

     “Nova! Stay _here_.” Raven limps a step closer, bends at the waist to drop a kiss onto the rough tangles of Nova’s hair. “I love you. I need you to follow the rules.” Nova is stiff and resistant in Raven’s embrace. It doesn’t matter. She forces the mask back onto Nova’s face. “Stay.”

 

     Murphy is stumbling in the corridor, an arm looped over Emori’s shoulders. She’s practically carrying him. His feet drag as he walks.

     “What happened?” Raven asks.

     “He hit his head.” Emori has her teeth gritted against the strain, her hand fisted into Murphy’s t-shirt. “Nova?”

     Raven jerks her head at the door. “In there. Watch her for me.”

     “Yeah,” Emori says, “if I’m not watching him.”

     There’s anxiety in her eyes and pain in the tight lines of her face. Raven can’t do anything to help them - not from here, anyway. Not physically. She limps on.

     Harper is next, with a pony bottle in her hand and another pressed to her face. She holds the spare out to Raven.

     “Thanks,” Raven says, taking it gratefully. “Monty?”

     “Already on his way. Bellamy?”

     Raven shakes her head. “Don’t know.”

     “Want me to-”

     “No, I will. Murphy’s hit his head, and Nova’s in there,” Raven says.

     “Right.” Harper reaches out for a second; her fingers curl around Raven’s shoulder and squeeze. “You okay?”

     Raven nods. “I’m good. Thanks.”

     They move past each other and keep going. Raven thinks, briefly, how glad she is that no one on this ship is that much of an idiot. They’re all smart enough to wake up and realise what’s happening. They’re all strong enough to try and do something about it.

     Bellamy’s shitty emergency run-throughs have probably helped.

     Raven moves faster, into the familiar, rolling gait. She feels more off-balance than usual, but she’s not sure if it’s the air or the bone-deep ache in her leg begging her to stop moving, to sit and stretch it out and knead the muscles until they relax. She presses the pony bottle to her face and breathes as slowly and steadily as she can while she runs. Or, almost runs. It’s as close as she’s ever going to get again, anyway.

     Running is hard to remember. Proper running. The way it felt when she was fast, and strong, and the ground would rush by under her feet. All of her muscles working together to propel her like a rocket. Like a machine.

     A time without pain is even harder to remember. But Raven’s gotten used to it, so it’s not a new thing for her, to be pushing away all the messages her body is screaming at her and focus instead on what she has to do.

     Monty is crouched over the niche in the wall where they store the oxygenator.

     “Do you need me?” Raven asks as she blows past.

     “Yes,” he says. He twists to stare after her. “Where are you going?”

     “Bellamy!” Raven shouts, and then she puts the mask back to her mouth.

     If he’s not in his room, he could be anywhere. Raven stops at his door anyway. She doesn’t waste time knocking.

     Bellamy’s there. Echo is, too, which is a surprise because Raven had kinda thought they’d ended their thing a little while ago. Maybe not. Except they’re both wearing clothes, sitting on his bed, and from the confused but not otherwise perturbed looks on their faces when they turn to Raven, they’ve just been talking.

     Seriously? Just talking?

     Raven yanks the mask away from her face. “Are you two fucking nuts?”

     Bellamy gets to his feet and sways. “Raven, how many times-”

     “The oxygen’s out, idiot,” she says. “Oh my god. Get your fucking pony bottle. I can’t _believe_ I wasted time coming to check on you losers.”

     She turns on her heel and runs again - close enough, anyway - back down the corridor to Monty, who’s not stupid enough to be standing around talking while the world goes to shit. They’re probably going to die. Raven feels like it wouldn’t be a surprise at this point.

     Not like that’s going to stop her from making an effort.

 

     It’s the what-ifs of it all that bother Raven later. Water sluices down her face and over her skin into the drain of the shower, and Nova laughs and stomps and crouches on the tiles, making waves with her hands.

     There’s still gunk under Raven’s fingernails, and the taste of it in her mouth from when she’d sucked it out of the pipes. Mostly dust, some moisture, and something greasy and black that she doesn’t want to wonder about. It’s oil. She hopes. The mess had bonded together and blocked the airflow and it had almost been too late.

     Bellamy and Echo hadn’t even felt it happen. They’d been the only ones awake, and the process had been too gradual for them to notice. That’s what sticks in Raven’s head. What if they’d all been awake? What if next time none of them notice?

     “Pick me up,” Nova demands, standing and raising her arms. “I want to touch the water.” She’s staring at the showerhead.

     “I can’t, baby.”

     “Why not?”

     “My leg’s not feeling good today.” And Raven is always unbalanced in the shower, with the wet floor and her brace gone. She doesn’t want to add Nova’s slippery, squirmy weight to that. Instead, she steps out of the stream of water and pushes Nova into it, running her fingers through the girl’s hair. She picks out knots carefully and slowly. Nova closes her eyes and turns her face into the water. She opens her mouth and laughs when water fills it up, turns and spits it at Raven.

     “Hey!” Raven says.

     Nova belly-laughs, her grin big and real. “Sorry, Mama.” She doesn’t sound sorry, the little monster.

     Raven can’t help smiling too. “ _You_ can get out,” she says, pushing Nova towards the door. “There’s a big fluffy towel waiting for you out there. I’m gonna stay here and get some peace and quiet.”

     Nova giggles again, but she climbs out of the shower, bouncing a little, shivering when the cold air hits her wet skin. “I’m hungry.”

     “We can eat later.”

     Nova pulls the towel over her head and puts her arms out. “Ooooooh.”

     “What?”

     “I’m a ghost.”

     She’s fine, Raven thinks, watching the girl stagger around blindly. Nova is fine, she’s laughing, she’s okay. And maybe they’re all a little tired, and their heads are a little sore, but they’re alive. Murphy’s got a concussion, but he’s alive too, and just as grouchy as ever. He’s always a shit patient.

     Except there’s always that unspoken _this time_ in the back of Raven’s mind. They’re alive _this time._

     Wouldn’t it be typical if they only had ten months to go and some stupid, tiny error killed them now? Every time in her life Raven’s thought she was safe, something’s ruined it. There’s always something. Today it was the oxygenator. Tomorrow it might be the water reclaimer. They can’t be lucky forever.

     Raven shuts off the water and steps out of the shower. She reaches out a dripping arm for her towel and wraps it around her chest. Nova staggers into her and Raven drops a hand to cup it around the girl’s face, tugging Nova’s head into her thigh.

     “Love you, kiddo,” she says.

     “ _Oooooooh_.”

     It’s impossible to imagine trying to keep Nova safe on the Ground. Spending the next ten years watching her - or twenty - or forty. Valuing someone else’s life so highly above her own. Raven had thought Finn’s death had ripped that kind of sentiment out of her.

     When they get back down things will be different. It won’t be the same place they left. No more Grounders. No more separate, warring Clans. Just Bunker people and Space people and Clarke. Nothing left to fight about.

 

     They get a message from Clarke two days later, and more than ever Raven wishes she could talk back. Tell Clarke about some of their narrow escapes and about the simpler things; Bellamy’s stupid beard, and Emori’s inappropriate topics of conversation at dinner, and the way she’d walked in on Echo letting Harper and Nova braid her hair.

     Most of them leave afterwards. Monty grabs Raven’s sleeve and Bellamy’s shoulder and pulls them both back.

     “I have an idea,” he says. “About the carbon dioxide.”

     Raven frowns. “We’ve already fixed it.”

     “No,” he says. “It’s not about the oxygenator, it’s about the _carbon dioxide_.” He hesitates, running his fingers through his newly short hair. “Mostly it’s an idea about the fuel.”

     Bellamy drops his hands into his pockets. “What?”

     “I think I know how to make enough fuel to get us home.”

     A slow smile spreads across Raven’s face. It makes her head hurt. She doesn’t care. “Are you kidding?”

     Bellamy blows out a long breath. “This is fantastic.” The ever-present tension in his face after listening to Clarke starts to disappear.

     Monty shrugs. “It’s not all good news. We’re going to have to cut our algae rations. And-”

     “What? We’re all going to die? I’ve heard that one before,” Raven jokes. Bellamy knocks his elbow against her arm and she rolls her eyes.

     “It’s going to take a long time,” Monty says. “A really long time.”

     Bellamy rubs a hand down the side of his beard. “How long?”

     Monty holds his hands out helplessly. “I don’t know. Longer than a year.”

     Bellamy groans. “A year? Seriously?”

     Raven says, “Okay. We’ll make it work.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'm going to change the title of this fic. It's been bugging me since I first published it but I haven't thought of anything better until now. Does anyone have a particularly strong, compelling argument for 'Taking A Village' over something new? And does anyone have a preference for, say, 'Celestial Objects' or 'Cosmic Dust' or 'Orbital' or something equally space-themed and cheesy? Suggestions and opinions welcome. We'll see where I go with this. 
> 
> Probs only a chapter or two left now. It's getting very likely I'll make this a series BUT I'll see where S5 goes first. Opinions on potential sequel also welcome. See how welcoming I'm being? I am so nice.


	8. The Nova Bit (2155)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And she sticks the landing right before the show starts! Nailed it, you guys. 
> 
> I wanted to make this chapter short, because living inside Nova's head is a little exhausting. This chapter did not end up being even remotely as short as I wanted. This chapter is a fricking leviathan. I'm so sorry. Hopefully you can put up with the childishness of it all for as long as it takes.  
> A couple of sections were written months ago at the very start of this story, and I haven't exactly been over them with a fine-tooth comb, so blame any timing/continuity errors/bad writing on that. My bad. 
> 
> This has been amazingly fun to write and so fantastic to see responses to, especially given that it's a S5 Spec Fic (or, sorta, not really) which has no major shipping and also a random child. Not exactly the thing people go looking for. Thank you to everyone who gave this a go <3

_May_

     The Clarke is on.

     Nova loves to listen to it, because it’s all about living on the Ground, which is a place she’s going to go when she’s older. When she hears Clarke it’s a woman’s voice, and she talks about things that Nova’s never seen. Trees, and Water, and Driving the Rover over Red Dust.

     Her bare feet slap against the metal of the corridor and she runs, quick, quick, because sometimes the Clarke is really short and Nova doesn’t want to miss it. Her hair blows out behind her and her arms pump to make her go faster. She zooms past a doorway and hears Harper laughing from inside.

     Nova twists around to try and see Harper, but she’s still going so fast that she forgets to look out. She runs into something and it hits her smack, across her whole body, and topples her down onto the ground.

     “Whoa,” Bellamy says, looking down at her. “Are you okay?”

     “Yeah,” Nova says, scrambling to her feet. “Clarke’s on!”

     Bellamy smiles. “I heard,” he says. “Are you coming to listen?” He holds out his hand.

     Nova nods, and she slides her hand inside Bellamy’s, and his fingers fold up around her fingers. Their arms swing as they walk, and Nova skips.

     “I want to hear about Madi today,” she says, because Madi is her favourite. Madi is a kid, like Nova, but a little older. And she’s always lived on the Ground, which is different too, because Nova’s always lived in space.

     “We’ll see what Clarke says.” Bellamy gets the sad lines over his eyes when he listens to the Clarke. Nova wants to rub the lines away with her fingers, but he’s too tall when he’s standing up. When Nova sits in Bellamy’s lap, or when he carries her high up in his arms, then she can reach his face. He has a beard that’s sometimes scratchy and sometimes soft, because it depends on if he’s cut it with scissors. Or if Mama’s cut it. Mama is good at cutting beards and also hair, but not Nova’s hair.

     They get inside Monitor, which is where they listen to the Clarke. Monty is sitting in the chair, so Nova lets go of Bellamy’s hand and runs over to crawl up onto Monty’s legs.

     He looks down at her and says, “Well hi there,” like he’s pretending to be surprised to see her.

     Nova gets onto her knees so that she can lean over the console in front of Monty. She’s only allowed to press buttons if someone says so, and that’s a Strong Rule, so she doesn’t touch anything. “Is the Clarke started already?”

     “Just some static,” Monty says. He puts his hands on her shoulders, pulling her back from the console.

     Nova twists so she can see him. “I wasn’t pressing any buttons,” she says.

     “I know that, Novie, but I’m just being careful.”

     “Fine,” she says, because _Careful_ is a big word that means important things. Instead of watching the console, Nova rubs her head into Monty’s shoulder and tucks her knees up to her chest. She watches Bellamy walk around and around without sitting down, which is what he always does when they listen. Because he’s silly.

     The sound of the radio makes crackles and hisses and it gets louder and louder. Right when Harper walks in, Nova hears the start of the speaking.

     Clarke goes, “ _Not long now_ ,” and Harper drops quickly into the chair beside Monty.

     Nova watches when Monty holds out his hand and Harper squeezes it. She thinks it means Harper is lonely, maybe, and she wants to hold hands. Nova likes to hold hands too.

     Clarke goes, “ _Forty-seven days since the Earth has been radiation free. Which you guys probably know, if you’re listening.”_ There’s a hiss which might be static or might be a giant snake and Nova kind of hopes it’s a giant snake. Things like giant snakes live on the ground. Monty tells her stories.

     She doesn’t know she’s wriggling until Monty taps her hip and she tries to go still because if she disturbs them when the Clarke is on then everyone gets mad.

     There’s still speaking going on. “ _…haven’t found a decent water source outside the valley, but we’re hoping. As soon as we do, there’ll be a chance of getting plants to grow somewhere else.”_

     Plants are one of those things Nova never sees. Clarke hardly ever describes them very much, unless it’s one of those days when she talks for a long time, and then she describes lots of things. Plants are green, which is the same colour as food, but brighter. Trees are green on top, but brown on the bottom. Brown is boring. Eyes are brown, except for Murphy’s eyes, which are wrong.

     Clarke is saying, “ _It’s been a long time since we last ate. Madi is sleeping…”_

     Nova wriggles and says, “Madi!”

     Monty taps her hip again. “Shh, Nova. Listening.”

     She _is_ listening. Nova puts her arms around Monty’s neck and rests her cheek against his cheek, where his hair gets in the way and tickles her nose. He has a lot of hair, but not as much as Nova does. Her hair is long and dark and always has tangles. Monty doesn’t get tangles. Unfair.

     “ _…I keep telling myself it won’t be long now, and you’ll all come back and help me dig the Bunker out, but honestly I don’t know._ ” There’s another long hiss and then it goes, “ _I really hope you’re alive up there, Bell._ ”

     They wait, but there’s nothing more. Nova looks at Bellamy.

     “You’re alive,” she says, “duh. That’s a stupid thing to hope for.”

     Bellamy shakes his head and presses his lips tight together. He’s got sad-face on.

     Harper stands up. She reaches for Nova, catching her up under the arms and swinging her through the air. “Come on, baby girl,” she says. “Let’s give Bellamy and Monty some time, okay?”

     Nova wraps her legs around Harper’s middle and says, “Time for what?”

     “Grown-up talk.”

     Nova groans, because grown-up talk happens _always_. Sometimes it’s boring and sometimes it’s what’s called Inappropriate which means bad words and sometimes it’s what’s called Violence which means the stories Echo tells. But Nova loves Echo’s stories.

     She hangs on around Harper’s neck when they leave Monitor. “Harper?”

     “Yeah, baby?”

     “When I’m a grown-up, am I allowed to listen to grown-up talk?”

     “Absolutely,” Harper promises. She smacks a kiss against Nova’s cheek, which makes Nova giggle from the way it tickles. “But don’t grow up too fast.”

     “No way,” Nova says. “I won’t be grown-up until I’m on the Ground. And that’s ages, right? Ages and ages.”

     “That’s right,” Harper says, and she pulls Nova close for a tight hug. Nova likes tight hugs. She rests her chin on Harper’s shoulder and plays with her hair.

     “Harper?”

     “Yeah, baby?”

     “The Clarke was a real person once, right?”

     “She still is. She’s just on the Ground, where we can’t see her.”

     Nova thinks that’s stupid, because you can see real people. Everyone knows that. She can see all the people who are real, and she can touch them, too. Clarke is just a voice, like the voice computers have when you ask them the right questions. But she asks Harper anyway; “Did Bellamy love the Clarke more than me? On the Ground?”

     “It’s a different kind of love,” Harper says. “We all love you so much, okay? Because you’re our only baby girl.”

     “Yeah,” Nova says, because she knows that.

     “But Clarke was our friend. You know how Emori loves Murphy? It’s a different love from how she loves you, right?”

     “With all the kissing,” Nova agrees, wrinkling her nose. “Yucky.”

     “That’s right. There are lots of different kinds. Okay?”

     “But I’m your best baby girl?”

     Harper pulls Nova back so that they’re face-to-face, and she smiles and gives Nova a kiss right on the nose. “You’re our best baby girl.”

 

     Murphy makes the food for dinner, which is bad because Murphy just kinda slurps it out into bowls and Nova doesn’t like that as much. Monty’s way is better. He makes cooking funny, like a show.

     Emori sits on the table next to Nova with her feet on the chair and they play shadow puppets up against the wall, and then they play arm wrestling, and the finger game. Mama says the finger game is good to play because it’s math, but Nova likes arm wrestling better.

     “Is Bellamy coming to dinner?” Nova asks.

     “He’s busy.”

     “Is Mama coming?”

     “She’s busy, too.”

     Busy is the same as Working, which is almost always in the Rocketship except for when it’s with the algae or the broken parts of the Ring. Parts break all the time, which is okay, because Mama is great at fixing them. When Nova gets bigger, she’ll fix things too.

     Nova wins the finger game. It’s a little unfair, because only one of Emori’s hands has proper fingers. They should play something more fair.

     “Wanna play worms?” Nova asks her.

     “No,” Emori says. “I hate playing worms.”

     Nova pushes her lower lip out to make a sad face. “Wanna play hide-and-seek?”

     “It’s nearly time for dinner.”

     “Yeah,” Nova says, “but let’s play hide-and-seek instead.” She starts to slide off the chair, but Emori reaches out with her big hand and grabs Nova’s arm.

     “Stay here for dinner, please.”

     “I’m not hungry.”

     “You need to eat if you want to grow,” Emori says, and she doesn’t let go of Nova’s arm.

     Emori is strong. Nova sighs and slumps back in her seat. And Murphy comes out just then anyway, with dinner, and he slurps it into bowls in the boring, not-fun way.

     Spoons are for eating with, but it’s quicker when Nova uses her mouth. She can just pick the bowl up and drink the food down, as long as she doesn’t go too fast and choke. Food is always really thick and a little bit chewy.

     Echo comes in for dinner and throws herself into a chair beside Nova so hard it skids across the floor.

     “Cranky,” Nova mumbles through her food.

     Echo glares at her. Uh oh. But there’s no shouting; just eating. Emori eats really slowly, making this grossed out face when she chews, like she’s playing the worm game after all. And Nova finishes first, because they’re all slow, slow, slow at dinner.

     “Can I go and find Mama?”

     “She’s working,” Emori says.

     “I know. I’ll just watch.”

     Emori looks at Echo, and Echo looks at Nova, and Nova smiles as big as she can.

     “Wash your bowl first,” Murphy tells her. “Raven’s in the rocket.”

     “Okay!” Nova hops up from her chair and carries her bowl into the kitchen-room. She has to climb on the cabinets to reach the sink, but that’s okay. Climbing is allowed as long as she doesn’t break anything (serious rule) or doesn’t fall down (just an ouch rule).

     Washing bowls has to be done quick, just to make sure nothing mouldy grows. Water is important, so Nova isn’t allowed to waste any. No splashing, no playing, no spilling. Those are all serious rules.

     She crawls down when she’s done and goes to find Mama.

 

     The Rocketship counts down like _five, four, three, two, one_ , but it never says _blast-off_ except in the stories, and that makes Nova sad. The stories are better than the real Rocketship. The real one is tiny and it smells bad like farts.

     Or like smelly smoke, because Mama is soldering, and that makes bad smells. She’s got the big pen in one hand and the wire in the other hand and they get pressed together until they melt. Nova can watch it happen, if she likes. She doesn’t like.

     “How much longer do you have to solder?” she asks Mama.

     “Ages.”

     “Oh. Why?”

     “Because we need the circuit boards to be in the right places,” Mama says.

     “So that we can take the Rocketship to Ground?”

     “Right.” Mama is bending right, right over, with her hair tied tight behind so that the solder-pen doesn’t catch it on fire. Nova has never seen big fire, only little ones, like for welding and soldering and heating things up. Little fire is pretty. Big fire burns people up right into ash, which is sort of what happened on the Ground.

     Nova’s glad she didn’t get burnt up right into ash, anyway. That’s why she left Ground in Mama’s tummy. Clarke and Madi stayed behind, but they didn’t get burnt up, because they’re special.

     There’s a seat in here just for Nova. She crawls up into it and pulls the straps over her arms and pretends she’s flying to Ground. The Rocketship will shake and shake and shake. Nova presses her face into the fabric of the seat and thinks of them flying down through all that space outside, until they reach the big ball of Earth and they’ll fly right into it - _crash!_

     It’s so round, but they won’t fall off because of what’s Gravity, and they’ll walk and walk and walk until they find Clarke and Madi and Octavia who is Bellamy’s sister. Sister means same mommy and daddy, except Nova doesn’t have a daddy and Mama only wants one baby girl. She said so.

     “Kiddo,” Mama says, “don’t play in here.”

     “I’m not playing!”

     “You’re bouncing up and down in that seat like a crazy girl.”

     Nova sighs, and slides out of the straps and her seat. “Can I do soldering for you?”

     “Nope. It’s too hot and too dangerous.”

     “That’s what you _always_ say.”

     Mama looks up from the melting metal and laughs at Nova. “It’s always true. Aren’t you tired yet?”

     “Um. Only a little.”

     “Why don’t you go and ask Monty to get you ready for bed? He can read you a story.”

     Stories are good. Bedtime without Mama is not good. “When will you come?” Nova asks.

     “In a little while. Before you fall asleep, okay? I promise.” Mama bends down and smacks her lips out and so Nova comes in close to have a kiss on her cheek.

     “Okay,” she says. “If you come before I fall asleep.”

 

     Actually Nova is asleep when Mama arrives in their bedroom, but it’s the sort of sleep which means she wakes up when she hears a noise.

     The blankets are tight and cosy and warm around Nova, and she blinks in the dim white light from the tablet on the bench and watches Mama. Getting ready for bed takes time - there’s hair and teeth and Mama’s brace to take off. Nova pulls the blankets right up over her ears and Mama gets into her pyjamas and then stops by the bench to check over her tools.

     “Are you coming into bed?” Nova asks.

     “In a minute. Go back to sleep.”

     “Mm, I had a bad dream.” Actually, Nova’s not sure if she had a dream, but she thinks she did.

     “Yeah?” Mama says. “What happened?”

     “Um, it was crocodiles. Lots of crocodiles. They ate me.” Crocodiles are scary in pictures, with big teeth for chomping kids. Nova isn’t sure if they’re alive on the Ground. They’re not the same thing as giant snakes, which also live in water and chomp kids. Octavia fought a giant snake once, and then she killed it dead and wore its skin as a cloak. Monty says she just ran away, but Nova knows that can’t be true. Echo says Octavia is the bravest _ever_.

     “That’s not a good dream, baby.”

     “Yeah. I need a hug.”

     Mama laughs. “In a minute. There’s a lot to do, okay?”

     “Because we’re leaving soon?”

     “That’s right. In four more months.”

     A month is many, many, many days. Four months is forever.

     That’s good, because Nova doesn’t think she’s ready to go down to Ground. Stories are okay, but they’re just imaginary in your head. When stories are for real, that’s when things get scary.

 

_June_

     “What are you doing in here, chicklet?”

     “Just watching,” Nova says. Murphy is using the paddles, which always looks like fun, but Bellamy says it’s _hard work_ and Murphy says it _sucks ass_.

     “Shouldn’t someone be supervising you?” Murphy asks her.

     Nova shrugs at him and crawls up into the chair near the water. “I dunno,” she says. “What’s it mean?”

     “Supervising? It means watching.” Murphy grunts as he pulls the paddle through the water. Nova leans over the edge of the chair to watch the swirls it makes in the green of the algae.

     “Bellamy was watching me,” she says. “He fell asleep.”

     Murphy looks up from the paddles. “Did he?”

     “Yeah. So I came to hang out with you.” Nova beams, wriggling her knees up higher in the chair. “Want to play a game?”

     “Nope.”

     “Not even arm wrestling?”

     “Nope.”

     “You’re just scared I’ll win,” Nova says knowingly.

     Murphy scoffs. “Yeah, right.”

     “I beat Bellamy in arm wrestling _all_ the time.”

     Murphy leans towards her. “Bellamy lets you win,” he says.

     That is _not_ true. Nova knows for a fact it’s not true. “No way!” she yells, but Murphy just grins at her and stands up straight again to work the paddles. Nova growls. He is a big, smelly liar.  

     “Listen,” Murphy says, “if you want to be helpful, go and check the temperature dials for me, okay? It feels cold in here.”

     It’s not even cold. Murphy is just a wimp. “I don’t get cold even in the _snow_ ,” Nova says, but she slides off the chair and drags it towards the panel on the wall which says numbers.

     “You’ve never seen snow.”

     “Yeah, but Echo tells me stories, and I don’t even feel cold in them.”

     “In what?”

     “In the _stories_ ,” Nova says, because _duh_. Murphy is not always good at understanding things. Sometimes Mama says things aren’t _the sharpest tool in the box_ and Nova thinks that’s about Murphy. He’s not the sharpest.

     She steps up onto the chair and puts her hands against the wall for balance, and then she leans right in to see the numbers. “It says a two and then a one.”

     “Jeez,” Murphy says. “Bump it up a notch, would you?”

     “You mean turning the dial?”

     “Yeah.”

     He doesn’t even know how to say turning a dial, Nova thinks, which is also not the sharpest. She turns it and says, “Now it’s a two and then a zero.”

     “Wrong way, chicklet. Try again.”

     That’s Murphy’s fault too, because he didn’t _tell_ her which way. Nova twists the dial. “Two and a one.”

     “Keep going.”

     “Two and a two.”

     “Until twenty-five,” Murphy says.

     “What’s that?”

     “A two and a five, Nova, come on. You know this stuff.”

     Nova rolls her eyes, which she’s not allowed to do because of _disrespect_ , but actually she’s facing the wall and so Murphy can’t see her. She turns the dial past two and a three, two and a four, and then  stops. “Twenty-five.”

     “Good job, little chick.”

 

     Harper plays worms with her. Nova giggles when they roll on the ground, squirmy wormy, and it’s a race. A wormy sort of race, but Nova is winning, because she can roll herself over and over so fast. She rolls herself right through the door into the training room, and up over the mats, and then she bumps into Echo’s legs and laughs.

     Echo uses one of her feet to push Nova onto her back. “What are you doing?”

     “Playing worms. I won.” Nova sits up and pushes her hair away from her eyes. “Are you doing a workout?”

     “Yes.” Echo has her arms bare all the way up to her shoulders, and her feet bare too, which means she’s been fighting on the mats. There’s no one else in here to fight with.

     “All by yourself?” Nova asks.

     “Yes.”

     “Want to fight with me instead?”

     Echo smiles. “Don’t you think you’re a little small?”

     “Um, nah.”

     “Okay.”

     Nova’s eyes shoot wide and she jumps up to her feet. “Really?”

     “Yes.”

     Echo has _never_ said yes before. A grin splits Nova’s face so wide she thinks her cheeks might burst. She curls her fingers into fists and holds them up in front of her face.

     “Are you ready?” Echo asks.

     Nova says, “Yes,” but she’s so excited that she can’t stop herself from bouncing a little on her toes. Maybe she’ll be so good at punching that she’ll even be better than Echo, and then she’ll be a warrior, and they’ll give her a sword. Swords are what Nova wants most of all. She’s never seen one except for pictures in books, but they’re sharp, like big knives, and-

     She hits the mats hard and goes, “Ooof,” as all the air is knocked right out of her chest. For a second or two Nova just gasps, and then she rolls onto her back and stares up at Echo. “You kicked me!”

     “I asked if you were ready.”

     Nova glares. “Kicking is _cheating!_ ” She feels a prickling in her eyes like tears and wipes at them quickly with her hands. Crying is for babies.

     “That’s the first lesson,” Echo says. “Never let your guard down. Get up.”

     But when Nova stands up, Echo’s foot whirls, knocking Nova’s legs from under her. This time she hits the mats on her side, her elbow crunching underneath her. It hurts.

     “Stop it!”

     Echo looks down at her. “Get up,” she says.

     Nova is _trying_. She clenches her hands into fists again, and this time she’s not smiling. She’s mad. She stands up and keeps her eyes on Echo, and this time, when Echo’s foot lashes out, Nova jumps backwards. Fast, so fast, and she doesn’t fall over.

     Echo smiles. “Good.”

     So it’s about being fast. Nova chews on her lip. She can be fast. She can be faster than anyone.

 

     Nova gets presents on June Day Thirty, which is when she turns five. Five is good. Presents are better. There’s a brand new book of stories to read with Bellamy, and a little wire man holding a sword. There’s a plaited headband made from scraps of fabric which holds Nova’s hair away from her eyes, and an _enormous_ orange sweater with a hood which is for keeping her super extra warm.

     Plus, having a birthday means that Nova gets to decide what they play and _everyone_ has to listen to her. They all play hide-and-seek - all of them together, which almost never happens. Nova crawls inside a cabinet in the shower room and peeks out through the hole in the metal door. She watches Bellamy search the room and presses her hands to her mouth to keep the giggles inside.

     Nova is the best at hide-and-seek. Afterwards she’s allowed to play tag with Echo and Harper and Monty. When Monty has to go and help Mama with the Rocketship, Emori and Murphy play instead. And when tag is done, they go and sit by the window to look at the stars and tell stories.

     Emori tells good star stories even though hers are made-up-pretend stories. Echo tells good Earth stories, and those are real-true stories. Murphy tells alien stories, which are somewhere in the middle. Nova tells a story too, a story about a girl who turned five and had the best birthday ever and wished the day would go on and on and never end.  In the story it stayed her birthday forever.

     In real life, she has to go to bed.

_July_

     The bang is loud enough to wake Nova up. She reaches out straight away for Mama, but her hand runs across empty sheets. Mama isn’t in bed. A second bang sounds even closer than the first and Nova whimpers.

     “Baby? It’s okay. Did you get woken up?”

     The bed dips and Mama is right there, sitting on the edge. It’s not quite dark in their room. There’s light from the tablet, which must mean Mama was working.

     “What’s happening?” Nova whispers. She curls her knees up to her chest in a little ball, because it’s so cold in here, even under the blankets and wearing her big orange sweater.

     “It’s debris, Nova. Space junk. Do you hear it?”

     Now that Nova listens, she can hear the sounds of it. Not just big bangs, but little noises too, _boom-boom-boom-boom_ like hands drumming on a tabletop.

     Another bang makes Nova jump. “Mama!”

     “It’s okay,” Mama says. She reaches out for Nova and lifts her up, still all wrapped in the blankets, to curl tight up in Mama’s lap. Nova puts her head against Mama’s chest.

     “Why is it so loud?”

     “That’s just junk that’s a little bit faster than the rest. It hits us and makes a noise, but it can’t hurt us. Okay?”

     “Where did all the space junk come from?”

     “From people,” Mama says. “Lots of it is probably from the Ark. I know it’s a little louder than you’re used to this time, but it’s just bigger pieces. The Ring is very strong, Novie. It’ll keep us safe.”

     “Do you promise?”

     “Yeah.”

     Nova shivers. “I’m cold.”

     “I’ll get you another blanket, if you like.”

     “In a minute,” Nova says. “I just need a cuddle.”

     “Okay,” Mama murmurs. She drops her chin onto the top of Nova’s head. “You’re a good kid.”

     “I know,” Nova says, and she snuggles right in and closes her eyes.

 

     When Nova goes to sleep it’s Mama sitting by her bed, but when she wakes up, it’s turned into Echo.

     There’s a yawn so Nova stretches and lets it out, rubs at her eyes and smiles at Echo. “Did I sleep till new day?” she asks.

     “Yes.”

     Nova tries to remember what day it had been when she fell asleep. “Number eight?”

     “Eighteen.”

     “Oh.” She sits up and pushes all the hair back from her face.

     Echo watches, and then she reaches out her hands and motions for Nova to come closer. Nova gets onto her hands and knees, crawls to the edge of the bed and brings her blanket with her, so she can wrap it around her shoulders tight. She’s always cold when she wakes up. Blankets are the best for being cold.

     “I had a dream,” Nova says, as Echo moves to sit on the bed beside her.

     “What happened?” Echo puts her hands in Nova’s hair, running her fingers through the tangles. She’s not ever gentle, so Nova scrunches her nose when it pulls and tries not to make any sounds. Warriors don’t cry when someone yanks on their tangles.

     “I fell in the algae,” Nova says. “It smelt yucky and it got all in my mouth and I ate so much I turned into a grown-up straight away.”

     “That doesn’t mean anything.”

     Nova frowns. “It’s a dream, it’s not supposed to.”

     “Sometimes dreams have messages.”

     “Like what?”

     “Anything.” Echo pulls again, winding the front parts of Nova’s hair together at the back, so they stay away from her face.

     Nova reaches up a tentative hand to touch the hair, but Echo slaps it away. “Is it going to look like yours?” Nova asks.

     “Yes. Be still.”

     “I am still. I’m really good at sitting still. I don’t even squirm like a worm.”

     Echo snorts. “You’ve never seen a worm.”

     “They’re pink,” Nova says, “which is like a lips colour if you drink lots of water, but not you and me. We’re not squirmy worms.”

     When Echo’s done, she stands up, off the bed. Nova stands up too, on top of the bed. She bounces a little with her blanket tight around her shoulders.

     “Where’s my clothes?” she wants to know.

     “In the drawer.”

     “Will you help me get dressed?”

     Echo nods her head, which means yes, which is a good thing. Nova hates getting dressed by herself. Everything always gets all twisted up, and she gets cold, and it’s lame. It’s _lame hell_ which is one of Murphy’s bad words but not the worst one. Hell is okay to say. Especially to Echo or Emori or Murphy because they don’t care.

     Nova’s clothes used to be grown-up clothes, or blankets, but they cut them with scissors and sewed them with needles to make them fit a little better. Emori is good at the cutting and the sewing. They’re still too big but Echo ties the trousers tight with string so they can’t fall right off. There are lots of layers, for stopping the cold. Extra layers today, because it’s extra cold.

     She stands on the bed and bounces a little while Echo helps her get into all the clothes, one after another after another.

     “I’m so hungry,” she says, when they’re mostly done. Just another layer, and Nova raises her arms and Echo pulls it down over her head.

     “We can go and eat.”

     “Yeah,” Nova says, bouncing again. She takes a little practice bounce and then she launches, straight up and out, so that she lands right in Echo’s arms. She wraps her legs and arms around and says, “Let’s go!”

     “You should walk,” Echo says.

     “Why?”

     “It’s good for you to walk by yourself.”

     “I know how to walk by myself,” Nova says. She pushes her lower lip right out. “Please, Echo? I love it when you carry me.” Her fingers curl in Echo’s hair, and she looks right in her eyes, and makes her saddest of faces.

     Echo sighs. “A warrior doesn’t need to be carried.” Her arms get tighter around Nova and she turns them around and walks towards the door.

     Nova grins. “Yeah, okay. No carrying tomorrow.”

     There’s no one in the corridor, which means they’re sleeping, or maybe doing the Important Stuff. Important Stuff is what will get them down to the Ground and that’s the most important thing. Nova’s not sure why, because she wouldn’t mind if they stayed here for longer. Maybe until she’s six. But everyone else wants to get to Ground as fast as they can.

     It’s colder in the food room, because nobody sleeps there. Nova shivers and huddles closer to Echo.

     “Tell me a story about the Ice,” she says. “It was so, so cold, right, Echo?”

     “Colder than you can imagine.”

     “And slippery,” Nova says with relish. “Like water. But super cold. Tell me a story?”

     “My first hunt on the ice,” Echo begins. Nova wriggles happily, because she loves this story. Echo says, “I was not much older than you. I had lived through five winters, and this was my sixth. My mother knew I was ready to go on a hunt.” She stops by the table, puts Nova’s feet on it and reaches around to unlatch her arms. “Do you know the word for mother?”

     “ _Nomon_ ,” Nova says.

     “Good,” Echo praises. “We dressed in many, many warm furs, and wrappings around my hands, so that my fingers would not freeze. I wore a hood up around my face, and I carried-”

     “A big spear! Super huge!”

     “Don’t interrupt.” Echo steps away from the table to get the food, and Nova climbs down onto one of the chairs.

     She sits up on her knees, so that she’s tall enough to see over the table. “Sorry,” she says. “I like this part.”

     Echo comes back with the food, sets it down in front of Nova and puts a finger on the girl’s lips. “Eat,” she instructs. “Don’t talk. Understand?”

     “Uh huh.” Nova picks up food with her fingers and keeps her eyes on Echo’s face, waiting for the story to continue.

     “We travelled a long way through the snow,” Echo says, “and I was very cold. My face was cold. My hands could barely hold my spear. I wanted my mother to carry me, but she didn’t. Do you know why?”

     Nova’s got her mouth full of the slimy green, and she’s not supposed to talk, so she shakes her head instead.

     “Because she wanted me to be strong,” Echo says. “Like a true warrior.”

     Nova’s gonna be a true warrior, too, someday. But not yet. She thinks when she’s six, like Echo was in the story, that’ll be the right time. True warriors aren’t scared of going to the Ground. Nova won’t be scared, either.

     “When we stepped out onto the ice we had to be silent. Slow footsteps, and careful breathing. No talking, or the seals would hear us and we’d go home hungry. We slid our feet along the ice until we found the breathing holes.” Echo fixes Nova with a stern gaze. “Underneath the ice?”

     “Water,” Nova says.

     “The word for water?”

     “ _Woda.”_

     “Good. Keep eating,” Echo says, and she waits until Nova bends her head to the bowl and then she continues the story. “We crouched down by the holes and sat on fur to keep from freezing. We waited for a long time - all day, until the sun went down, and all that time we had to be quiet and still. No moving. No sound.”

     Nova bounces in her chair, because this is the most exciting part. Echo is still being quiet, which is what’s called _building suspense_ but sometimes Nova gets too impatient. She says, “Until a _seal-”_

“Are you telling this story?” Echo asks her.

     Nova giggles. “No.”

     “Let me finish, then.”

     “There was a seal,” Nova says, bouncing, “and I’ve finished my food.”

     “ _Gyon au woda-klin_.”

     That means to wash up, Nova’s almost sure, and it’s what she’s meant to do anyway after eating so it’s a very safe guess. “Keep going with the story!”

     “There was a seal,” Echo says, “and it came up through the hole. Very suddenly - it was just there, with its eyes and nostrils closed.”

     Nova climbs on the cabinets to reach the sink. “I can’t close my nostrils.”

     “You can if you pinch them with your fingers.”

     Nova tries. “Oh yeah!” she says, and her voice sounds funny, and she laughs.

     “I held my spear across my lap,” Echo says, “because my arm had gotten tired and I couldn’t keep it ready anymore. But when I saw the seal I knew it was time, and I raised my arm, and I plunged my spear down as hard as I could into its throat.”

     “But it had strong skin,” Nova says. This is one of the parts Bellamy says is Inappropriate.

     “Its skin was very tough, so my mother helped me,” Echo says. “We pushed on the spear together, and sent it straight through the seal and into the ice on the other side. The seal could not escape. Blood filled the water. We jumped up and called for the other hunters and they came running. We all heaved the seal up onto the ice, and blood ran down from its neck and over its spotted fur and onto my boots. It was my first kill.”

     “And it was _tasty_ ,” Nova says with relish, jumping down from the cabinets. “Seal is much tastier than real food. When we go down, you’re going to catch me some to eat.”

     Echo says, “Hm,” and that’s all.

     It probably means maybe.

_August_

     In the corridor, Nova’s breath starts coming out in white puffs. She laughs when she sees it, and turns around towards Bellamy.

     “Look, Baba!” she says. “I’m a dragon.” She breathes out a big, huge dragon breath, and watches it drift up towards Bellamy.

     Bellamy doesn’t laugh. He frowns, lines on his forehead and between his eyes, and then he blows out and he can do dragon, too. “Come here,” he says, holding a hand out for Nova.

     “We’re both dragons!” Nova bounces on her toes. “I’ve never been a dragon before.”

     “It’s not a good thing, Nova.”

     “Why not?” She blows another huge dragon breath, and then she tries a dragon roar. To her delight the dragon roar also makes a cloud of smoke.

     Bellamy hoists her up into his arms, swinging her so that she sits against his side. “Come on,” he says. He walks fast - almost as fast as running, and Nova leans her arms on his shoulder and blows little whistles of dragon smoke.

     He takes her to the Rocketship, and Nova isn’t sure why. “I’m cold,” she tells him as he lowers her to the ground.

     “I know,” Bellamy says. Then he does something strange. He reaches behind his head and pulls on the neck of his sweater, tugging it right off. “Arms up, sweetheart.”

     Nova raises her arms and the sweater comes down over her, too-big and warm from being on Bellamy. She huddles into it and shivers. “Now you’ll get cold, Baba.”

     “I don’t mind. Will you stay here?”

     “By myself?”

     “Only for a little while.”

     “No.”

     Bellamy crouches to look her in the eyes. “Wait here for me, Nova.”

     Reluctantly she says, “Okay,” and Bellamy turns around and leaves. He’s still walking very fast.

     Nova finds the seat in the Rocketship which is special just for her and she crawls up into it.

     Murphy arrives panting, like he’s been running. He can also do dragon breath, and Nova’s a little bit annoyed now. She’d thought she was the only one. There are lots of blankets in Murphy’s arms, and he comes to sit next to Nova. “Hey, little chick.”

     “What’s all the blankets for?”

     “Keeping warm. It’s a bit cold today.” Murphy throws a blanket right over her, even covering her face.

     “Hey!” Nova exclaims, but it is true that she’s cold. She lets Murphy tuck the blanket tight around her legs.

     Emori is next to come. She says, “Are you okay?” but she’s looking at Murphy, not at Nova.

     “Fine,” he says. He holds out another one of his blankets. “Keep yourself warm.”

     Emori sits on Murphy’s lap, which is stupid because she’s got her own Rocketship seat. Nova plays with the straps and tries to stop shivering. She doesn’t like the way it makes her teeth clatter together.

     Harper and Echo step into the Rocketship at the same time, and they both look cold. Harper’s nose is red. Echo is wearing a woolly hat, and she has another one in her hands. She steps forward and pulls it down over Nova’s head and ears.

     “What’s it for?” Nova asks, freeing one hand from the blankets to touch it.

     “Staying warm.”

     “It’s itchy.” It’s warm, too, so Nova lets it stay on. Harper comes to sit beside her. There’s a lot of shivering now. Harper wraps her arms around Nova, like she thinks it might help, but it doesn’t really.

     Nova’s toes feel funny. Cold and detached. The way they feel when she sits on her leg for too long. Like they’re not really there.

     Bellamy comes back with Mama and Monty, and Mama is saying, “-freezes solid, Bellamy, we have to launch _now_.”

     Nova isn’t sure what’s freezing solid, but she’s pretty sure _launch_ is the same as _blast-off_. And Monty and Bellamy are both carrying the orange and grey suits.

     “Mama?”

     “Wait, baby.” Mama is pulling suits out of Bellamy’s arms, and Harper and Emori are standing up and reaching out for them. Monty drops his pile on the ground and turns towards the Rocketship console with all the buttons.

     “Mama!”

     She comes towards Nova and ducks down on her good knee with her bad leg stretched out straight. “I need you to be brave, and I need you to do what we tell you.”

     “You said not for months and months. You _said_ , Mama,” Nova says, and she can’t keep going because her throat gets choked with a feeling like crying and she’s so, so cold.

     Mama kisses Nova’s forehead. “Harper’s going to get you in your suit. Brave, Nova. You can be brave.”

     Nova can be brave. She tries so hard. Even when Harper is helping her into the too-big Ark suit which is special just for Nova, which Mama patched and sewed and mended a hundred times to make sure it was safe.

     The helmet comes down over Nova’s head and a gasping sob comes out of her mouth that she can’t hold back. “Take it off! Harper!”

     Harper twists the helmet and it clicks into place. “It’s okay, baby girl,” she says. “Get back in your seat now.”

     Nova starts to cry properly. She reaches up to her helmet and claws at it and says, “No, no! Get it off, I don’t want it!”

     Harper lifts Nova under her arms and towards her seat and Nova screams, she screams and she kicks.

     “I don’t want to!” she screams. “I don’t want to go! I want to stay!” Her helmet is stuck on and it’s so tight and close in here that Nova doesn’t think she can even _breathe_.

     Echo is there suddenly, and her arms are strong strong bands around Nova’s middle. She holds Nova still; holds her arms and legs while Harper pulls them through the straps and Nova is buckled in too tightly to escape. It doesn’t matter how much she squirms like a squirmy worm, because the straps are holding her down.

     “Take a breath,” Echo says. “Deep breaths.” She piles blankets on Nova and around Nova.

     She doesn’t want to take deep breaths. She doesn’t want to be in this seat. She doesn’t want to be in this Rocketship. Nova kicks out with her foot and it catches Harper in the mouth and Harper jerks back with blood on her lip.

     Nova cringes. Harper says, “ _Raven!_ ”

     Mama says, “I can’t, okay? I can’t. Just deal with her.”

     Bellamy appears in front of Nova, crouching by her side. “Nova, I need you to calm down.” There’s a helmet on his head and it makes him look strange and square and distant. His voice sounds hollow and far away. When Nova reaches out she can’t touch him. She sniffs hard against the snot ribboning out of her nose and the tears spilling down her cheeks and soaking into her sweater.

     Everyone is wearing a suit. They look strange and dark, their hands covered by black gloves and their faces faint and greyish. Nova tugs against the restraints and they hold her fast. Even Bellamy stands up and moves away from her - she’s alone, and Harper is nearby but not close enough to touch. Nova is _alone_ and strapped to this seat and she can’t get away.

     “Mama!”

     Mama says, “Initiating countdown,” and she’s not looking at Nova.

     There are the numbers, just like in the stories. Counting backwards. _Ten… nine… eight… seven…_

     Bellamy holds onto the straps around him and he smiles at Nova. It looks wrong through the helmet. She whimpers.

     _…six…five…four…_

     Harper reaches out her hand and catches hold of Nova’s arm. She squeezes. “It’s okay,” she whispers. “It’s okay.” The glove makes crinkling sounds where it touches Nova’s suit.

     _…three…two…one…_

     Nova sniffs, hard, and tries to lift an arm to wipe her face. She can’t raise it high enough. There’s glass in front of her face. The straps are holding her down tighter than tight and everything around her is shaking, shaking, shaking.

     It shakes and rumbles so hard and loud and Nova closes her eyes and opens her mouth and screams, she _screams, “MAMA!”_

     There’s a second among all the shaking and the screaming when Nova thinks that she might be floating. Her body feels it. Her arms wave up in the air. She opens her eyes, just a peek, and she sees Echo being held down by the straps.

     They can float. Floating in air. Like magic. Nova stares and wonders.

     The shaking gets worse and she squeezes her eyes shut and clutches at Harper’s gloved hand and cries again.

 

     They fall. Like in the stories, they fall down and down and down. They fall right out of the stars and they fall all the way to Earth.


End file.
